Shape Shift
by Jaenelle Angelline
Summary: A young girl discovers she can change shape. She turns herself into a cat...and then can't change back! FINISHED. Read, review please! Thank you!
1. Default Chapter

Chapter 1: Rogue 

                "Oww!"

                Ororo looked back down the garden path at the shorter, auburn-and-white-haired woman yanking impatiently at the tangled branches of the rosebush growing up the trellis. "Rogue, are you all right?" she called, pausing in her pruning of the old juniper bush.

                "Yeah, 'Ro," came Rogue's answer as she stepped out from under the trellis and stripped off her heavy gardening gloves. "Jus' got mah hair tangled in that stupid rosebush!" She pulled off the elastic holding the majority of her thick hair at the nape of her neck, then started to gather the straggling ends back into their thick ponytail. "Ah tell yah, 'Ro, they might be pretty, but they--"

                Both women stopped talking as they heard the sound of a car coming up the driveway. Rogue craned backward, peeking around the garden gate. "Naw, it ain't the boys," she said, clearly disappointed. Remy had promised to get her something for her birthday coming up, and she wanted to get a peek at his bags when he came in, hoping to get a glimpse of whatever it was he was going to get.

                Ororo put down the pruning shears and came over to join Rogue at the garden gate. They watched as a dark blue Cavalier rolled up the front driveway, parked neatly to one side so as not to obstruct the way for any other cars that might be coming, and disgorged a nicely-dressed middle-aged couple holding a small animal crate. "What the--" 

                The woman put the crate down on the asphalt of the driveway and opened it. Out shot an enormous black cat. It was half again the size of any stray Rogue had ever seen, and possessed the most piercing pair of vivid blue eyes. It yowled at the woman in complaint.

                "I'm sorry, Mickie," the woman said apologetically. "But you heard the policeman. You have to ride in the crate." The cat meowed back, still clearly complaining, then turned and looked at the front of the mansion up and down, appraisingly.

                Rogue blinked. There seemed to be a purpose to the cat's movement, almost as if it were human. She swung the garden gate open and walked up to the couple, Ororo following. "Hello," she said, holding out one hand. "Can we help y'all?"

                The man straightened up. "Uh, yes," he said tentatively. "I called Mr. Charles Xavier earlier about a problem with my daughter…"

                Rogue vaguely remembered Charles saying something about expecting a new student, but she hadn't been paying much attention. Scolding herself for her lack of attention, she pushed a stray auburn curl from her forehead and smiled reassuringly. "Ah can take yah to him," she said. "He's probably expectin' yah, seein' as how y'all're here." She led the way up the front steps, pushed open the heavy front doors, and brought them into the front foyer. "Was he expectin' the kitty?" she asked as she took them through the front rooms and down the hallway toward Charles' public office. "What's your cat's name, anyway?" She turned to look at the couple as she asked the question, and was startled by the glare the cat gave her from the safety of the woman's arms.

"Uhm, she's…she's, err, not really a cat," the man said. "This is Micaela. She's our daughter." Rogue stopped dead, staring at the cat wide-eyed, and behind her, Ororo echoed, "Your…daughter?"

                "Mickie's a shapeshifter," the woman hastened to explain. "She started out by just changing her hands and fingers to different shapes, but she got a little bolder and started to try whole body shapes. She shifted into a cat, just for fun, and…uh…got stuck."

                Rogue blinked. The cat gave her another blue-eyed glare before settling into the woman's arms purring sweetly. Ororo took over, leading the still-stunned Rogue and the quiet couple up to Charles's office door. She knocked. "Charles?"

                "Come in, Ororo." She opened the door and let the couple, the woman still holding the cat, walk into his office ahead of her. There were two chairs already pulled up; Charles had expected them, obviously. 

                "Mr. Thompson, Mrs. Thompson, welcome to my school," Xavier said, indicating the chairs. The couple sat down, the woman settling the cat on her lap. "And this is Mickie?" His eyes went briefly unfocused, looking at but not really seeing, the cat sitting on the woman's lap. Rogue knew that look; Charles only got that look when he was communicating telepathically.

*                                                              *                                                              *

                **Can you hear me?**

                Mickie almost jumped out of her skin. _Fur_, she corrected herself sarcastically, _you have fur now_. _And if this man can't help you you're probably going to have fur for the rest of your life_. She sprang out of her mother's lap and jumped up on the desk, eyeing the man behind that desk carefully.

                **Oh, almost certainly we can help you, **came that voice again, slightly amused now. **Your parents brought you here for that specific purpose. I'm Charles Xavier, the Headmaster here at the Institute.**

                 _I'm Micaela Thompson. Mickie for short_. Mickie reached out a hand for him to shake, and realized she didn't have a hand, she had a paw. Mr. Xavier took it anyway, his lips curving into a smile at the thought of himself shaking the paw of a cat, then turned his attention to the parents. "Mr. Thompson, Mrs. Thompson, thank you for bringing Mickie here. She has a unique mutation, but not an impossible one. She will be back to her own self soon."

                Andrea Thompson almost sobbed in relief. "Oh, thank goodness! I've been so worried! This happened just after final exams, and we were lucky that her school was just letting out for the summer and the faculty didn't care about attendance too much. We told them we were going on vacation early to explain why Mickie wasn't in school. She doesn't have that many friends, so we were a little lucky there."

                Calvin Thompson put a hand over his wife's hand and squeezed it gently. "We thank you for allowing us to bring Mickie here, Mr. Xavier," he said. "We've been so worried. She's been like this for almost a month now, and it's so awkward. We used to hear her around the house all the time; and now we miss it so much. It's odd to hear meowing instead of my little girl calling me." Mickie got up from her place sitting on the desk and jumped into her father's lap, rubbing her cheek against his. He got a little misty-eyed as he patted her head gently. She leaned into the caress. Really, there were places that fingers could get to that her own paws couldn't. Like right behind the ears. 

                Xavier indicated the two women standing behind the couple, still staring at Mickie. "Mickie, Mrs. Thompson, Mr. Thompson, these are two of our teachers. This is Marie Rousseaux," and Rogue smiled as she held out her hand. Both parents shook her hand. "And this is Ororo Munroe. Marie teaches Physical Education, and Ororo teaches Meterology and Earth Sciences." The two parents shook Ororo's hand.

                Xavier steepled his fingers, pursing his lips thoughtfully. "It is June, and classes are not currently in session. Most of our other students have left. We only have a few who board here year round, so that means a lot of our rooms are empty. Will Mickie require any…special arrangements?"

                Mickie rolled her eyes. _Just a place to sleep, it doesn't have to be a bed, though that might be nice. And maybe a private place for…my…litter box?_ After a month it was easier to say, but no easier to admit. She might still be human inside, but she was in cat form, and cats weren't designed to use toilets. She found it intensely embarrassing to have to use a litter box. And forget using it in front of anyone who might see! She felt her body flush with embarrassment, and was glad her cat form didn't have exposed skin to blush with.

                "We have a few bedrooms with a bathroom attached, for our special needs students. One of those should do fine. As we have so few students now, Mickie should have plenty of privacy. Hopefully this little problem should be cleared up in a couple of months when classes resume."

                _Little problem!_ Mickie rolled her eyes again and jumped off her father's lap. Little problem for them, big problem for her. She arched her whiskers forward, amused. _So where is this bedroom?_

                "Mickie, the rules do allow for your parents to stay here a couple of nights so that you can get adjusted to living here before they leave," Xavier said. Both Mr. and Mrs. Thompson looked at Mickie hopefully. Mickie hissed, amused, then sat down in front of them, wrapping her tail around her front legs. _Mom, Dad, I'm going to be fine!_ she insisted, batting first at her mother's shoe, then at her father's. _You two go on ahead. You've been planning that trip to Uncle Brian's out in Colorado for a month, so go! Aunt Lynne doesn't like kids anyway! She'll be glad to see you without me. I'll be fine, Mom! I swear!_

                Mickie's mother wasn't telepathic, but she could read Mickie's body language. "Dear, are you sure? I thought you'd want to come to Uncle Brian's with us."

                Mickie's whole body shuddered, an eloquent refusal. _All that snow and cold! No, Mom, Dad, you can go, thanks! I'll stay here where it's warm!_

"You don't like snow?" Xavier asked her wryly. Mickie twisted her head around in that peculiar way cats have to look up at him. He chuckled. "Neither do I. Mr. Thompson, Mrs. Thompson, don't worry. Mickie will be fine. As soon as she's able to, she'll call you. In the meantime, you are welcome to call here anytime for reports on her progress."

                "As long as you're sure," Mrs. Thompson got up, still looking a little uncertain.

Mickie extended the claws on her right front paw and took a swipe at her mother's foot. Not deep enough to scratch, but just enough to get her point across. She did the same to her father's foot.

Mr. Thompson reached into his pocket and withdrew a fat envelope. "When she got stuck in this shape she was in the middle of a major growth spurt. We packed for her, but we suspect that when she finally does return to her human form she will probably have outgrown all of her clothes. I have provided extra funds in that envelope for her to obtain new clothes and other necessities she might need. As well as cover the cost of obtaining extra cat litter and cat food…" 

Xavier's eyes held a twinkle of amusement. "She does not eat meals as we do, then?"

Mrs. Thompson turned pink. "Mickie tried, but her form is that of a cat. Completely. Right down to the digestive system. She can't handle some foods that we do, so we've tried different cat foods until she found one that's almost palatable." Mickie drew her lips back from her teeth in an expression of distaste. _'Almost' being the operative word here,_ she thought. _And other cat owners wonder why their cats don't want to eat the stuff. 'Choice parts', my tailbone! I'd go out and kill my own meat, except that Mom wouldn't like the mess!_

Xavier laughed heartily. "She was just expressing her opinions of the taste of cat food," he said to the Thompsons,  Ororo and Rogue.

Mickie's mother looked depressed. "But Mickie, darling, we tried to find the best tasting cat food for you; you said yourself it wasn't bad. Did the company change the way they made the cat food?"

Mickie shook her head so hard her ears rattled. _It was good compared to the other cat foods on the shelves. But it's a far cry from your pot roast and Dad's steaks!_ She nuzzled her mother's hand. _Go on, Mom. I'll be fine. I know how hard this has been for you._ She licked her mother's face gently and batted at her foot again.

"Mickie will be fine, Mrs. Thompson," Xavier said gently as he wheeled his chair out from behind his desk. "Please, go on with your vacation plans. We will manage." Mickie followed the wheelchair out into the hall as the two pretty women led the way, back to the front door. She watched as her parents took her two suitcases out of the trunk of the car and started toward the mansion. 

The shorter woman with the auburn and white hair took the bags, even the heavy one with Mickie's litter, litterbox, and several cans of cat food in it, from her mother. "We can take those, sugah," she told Mrs. Thompson. "Y'all bettah hurry if yah don't wanna miss the flight!" She stood with the tall silver-haired woman and the Headmaster on the top step, waving after the couple as the car backed slowly down the drive. Mickie sat on the step, one paw lifted, 'waving' too until her parents' car pulled out of sight. 

_So where is my room?_ she asked the three adults, tipping her head back and looking up at them. _Please excuse me, but I really do need to use the…err…litter box._

Xavier smiled. "Mickie needs to use her facilities," he said to Ororo. "Would you take her up to…oh, I think room B2 will do nicely. I've been informed that Henry Keller won't be returning this fall, so if you would put Mickie's name on the door that can become her room."

"Gotcha, Charles," Rogue smiled as she picked both suitcases up and led the way into the mansion.


	2. Interesting Introductions

Chapter 2: Interesting Introductions

                Mickie wrinkled her nose. Not bad. The room had a single twin bed, desk, small dresser, mirror on top of the dresser, a chair in the corner, and a door off to the side of the bed that led to a small half-bath, which contained a toilet and a sink. There was a tiny standing shower stall, and Mickie eyed it wistfully. It had been a month since she had been able to take a hot shower. She missed the feel of warm water pounding her skin, the smell of soap and shampoo, and that lazy, relaxed feeling that came after a good hot shower. She had followed her cat instincts and groomed herself, but the feel of fur stuck to her tongue was distinctly unpleasant. And hairballs; forget it. Her mother had dosed her with hairball-relief medicine the first time she'd experienced a hairball, and she wasn't going to repeat the experience. Now she licked water to clear her mouth of hair while she was grooming herself. 

                She was just lucky that she'd chosen the shape of an ordinary housecat, rather than, say, a Himalayan or other long-haired breed. All that hair. Yech. She made a face.

                "Would yah like me tah unpack for ya?"

                Mickie shook her head. She had no need for clothes. What she did want was her litter box. She nudged the other suitcase, the one with her 'food' and litter and litter box in it, and Rogue opened the suitcase. She felt extremely peculiar pouring out kitty litter into a litter box for someone who wasn't really a cat, but decided that laughing would probably not be the best way to gain Mickie's friendship.

                "This is mah wing, so Ah'm responsible fer yah," Rogue said, smiling. "Ah'll come check your box every morning till you're out of cat form, an' Ah'll clean it. Anything else yah need?"

                Mickie jerked her head. _Just put the box in the bathroom and shut the door, please!_ she begged desperately. _I have to go. I really, really have to go. _To her relief the woman put the box down in the bathroom, and Mickie darted in gratefully, pushing the door shut with her paws before racing to the box. She closed her eyes, sighing as she emptied her little cat body, then jumped at the knob, gripping it with her paws and twisting. The knob turned, and she dropped to the floor as the door opened. She sauntered out, waving her tail, and found the woman wasn't alone in the bedroom. A man had joined her; tall, handsome featured, with cinnamon hair and unusual eyes, and the most mouthwatering physique Mickie had ever seen on a man. Mmmm. She wondered if he was one of the teachers; if he was she was going to make absolutely certain that she enrolled in _every_ class he taught! 

                Neither teacher had noticed Mickie's exit from the bathroom. She sat on the floor, wrapping her tail around her front paws, and listened to them talk.

                "So what'd yah get me f'r mah birthday?" Rogue asked.

                "Eh, _non, chere_," the man replied, and Mickie closed her eyes at the sound of his voice. Husky, with a slightly seductive edge to it…for some reason the voice reminded her of melted chocolate. "If Remy tell you what he get you for your birt'day, it not goin' to be a surprise." Oh, Mickie could go to sleep listening to that voice. She allowed herself to slump forward, in what her mother called her bread-loaf position, and fixed her unblinking blue eyes on the tall man.

                "But Ah wanna know!"

                The man chuckled, the sound playing arpeggios on Mickie's spine, from the base of her skull down to the end of her tail and back. "_Non_. Remy goin' to make you wait, _chere_." He turned to leave, and then caught sight of Mickie, on the floor. 

                "Hello. What's dis?" without waiting for Rogue's answer, he bent and scooped Mickie up from the floor, cradling her in his arms. Mickie smelled the cologne he wore, smelled the good, quality leather of his gloves, and rolled her head as his fingers scratched the back of her head, just behind the ears, in that odd little itchy spot…Oh, gosh. She melted in his arms, closing her eyes, and then started to purr.

                Rogue was laughing so hard she had to sit on the bed. Remy looked at her, puzzled, and Mickie shot her a dirty look. _Don't tell him,_ she silently admonished the older woman. _I'm having too much fun right here in his arm…oooh, yes, right there, that's the itchy spot, yes…oh, my god, I am in LOVE with this man_…her eyes closed as the hands started scratching her tummy. _A little further down, please_…

                But Rogue pulled herself together and said, still chuckling, "Remy, meet our new student, Mickie Thompson. Mickie, this is Remy LeBeau. He teaches Atomic Physics."

                _Pleased to meet you. Verrry pleased to meet you. Atomic physics, huh? Oh, well, at least there will be something about that class worth looking at._

                Remy looked at the cat, at Rogue, and back at the black cat. "You jokin',_ chere_. Please say you jokin'." He sounded like a man desperately trying to believe the sand under his feet was solid rock.

                "Nope. Not jokin'. Would Ah lie ta yah?"

                "Did Bobby talk you int' doin' dis practical joke?" Remy stopped fondling Mickie. Mickie opened her blue eyes and looked at Rogue. _Stop. Please stop. Before he puts me down and I stop being able to feel those rock hard abs against my ribs…_

                But Rogue didn't stop. "Naw, Mickie is a shapeshifter.  She shifted int' the form of a cat, an' couldn't get changed back, so her parents brought her heah f'r Charles to help her."

                Just then, another head poked into the room, and Mickie lookd into the eyes of a shorter but no less muscular man. His brown eyes widened as he gave an audible sniff, then he said, "Gumbo, 'less ya wanna add a little shapeshiftin' cat-girl ta the list o' women who follow ya around, ya better put her down."

                Remy put Mickie down on the floor, quite hastily. Mickie snarled at the man in the door, who was now leaning against the doorframe with a smirk on his face, and then at Rogue, curled up helplessly on the bed laughing. Then she sidled up to the man, put her paw on his ankle, and meowed once, deliberately, pitifully. He looked down at her, but didn't pick her up. She meowed again. He gave her one last look, flushed, mumbled something unintelligible under his breath, and fled the room.

                _DANGITDANGITDANGIT!_ Mickie almost screamed in frustration in her mind. _What'd you have to go ruin it for! Couldn't you have told him later?_

"Told him what later, dear?" came a new voice. And Mickie looked up, seeing in the doorway a woman with unbelievably deep green eyes and hair like living fire. "Rogue? Is this Mickie?"

                "Yes," Rogue said. "Mickie, Ah'm sorry, Ah jus' thought Ah'd warn him 'fore he dug himself in a hole…"

                "A very deep one," said the man by the door. "Remy was pettin' the new girl, Jean. Didn' know he was doin' it, neither. Thought she was a pet. Shoulda seen the look on his face!" And he chuckled too. 

                Jean sighed. "Hello, Mickie. I'm Jean Summers, I teach psychology here at the institute. I'm also a telepath. If there's ever anything you need to tell someone, let me know and I'll tell them for you until we get your shapeshifting straightened out. This is Mr. Logan, he teaches martial arts and self-defense classes."

                _What I want is for you to tell the other guy to come back and finish scratching my tummy!_ Mickie howled indignantly.

                **I won't do that, sorry,** came Jean's voice in her head. **Remy and Rogue…Marie…are going out right now. And you're only fifteen, it wouldn't be right.**

                Mickie hissed in displeasure, twitched her tail irritably, and sat down, picking up a paw and beginning to wash it. Just for something to do, so they'd all think she was ignoring them, and so they'd know she was upset with them. She didn't look up again until Rogue and Logan had gone, and Jean was the only one left. Jean closed the door quietly, then sat down on the bed and laughed. **I do wish I'd seen Remy's face.**

                Mickie chuckled quietly, relenting. _Yeah, it was pretty funny._ She giggled, then sighed. _As much as I_ _hate to bother anyone, I am getting a little hungry._

                Jean reached for the open suitcase, took out a can of cat food and the plastic bowls Mickie always ate out of. She popped open the top of the cat food, and started to upend it into the bowl, then stopped and gave it a sniff. "You eat this stuff?"

                _Not willingly!_ was Mickie's tart response. _But other things upset my stomach._

                Jean thought. "We had roast chicken last night," she said. "I think there might be some left. If I leave off the gravy do you think you could eat that?"

                Mickie sprang off the bed. _Lead the way!_

                There were two other people in the kitchen when Jean and Mickie came in. One was a boy…well, he wasn't old enough to be one of the teachers, though he was clearly not a student…with sandy-brown hair and a bright smile, the other was a young Asian girl, maybe a year younger than Mickie herself. They were sitting over the kitchen table, eating bowls of ice cream and talking in low voices over a sheet of paper on the tabletop. When they saw Jean come in, they whisked the paper out of sight. The bowls of ice cream suddenly became the most interesting thing in the universe.

                Jean opened the refrigerator and took out the chicken, then put it down on the kitchen table and began stripping the bones of their meat. "What was it," she said finally, tranquilly.

                "What was what?" the two kids looked up at her with wide innocent eyes. Mickie started laughing. She had seen that same expression on her own face when she was about to pull a major practical joke on her parents. These two were planning something.

                "That drawing." Mickie watched as the red-haired woman twitched the drawing telekinetically out from behind the boy's back. Her mother had told her the school was for mutants, and the teachers were likely to be mutants too, but it was still a mild surprise to see the teacher use telekinesis.

                "It's nothing, its just stupid scribbles," the boy said, flushing hastily. Jean eyed the drawing, and Mickie jumped up on the table, to see it better. It looked like a motorcycle, but with some odd squiggles all over it Mickie couldn't quite figure out.

                "And what would you be doing with a drawing of Scott's bike?" Jean looked disapproving as she crumpled the drawing up and dropped it in the trashcan. Neither kid answered; they were both staring at Mickie. Mickie sat down on the table, opened her eyes quite wide, then drew her lips back from her teeth in the closest thing she could manage to a smile.

                "This is our new student, Mickie Thompson. She's a shapeshifter. Her parents brought her here so Charles could help her change back."

                "This is a joke, right?" The boy was looking at Mickie speculatively.

                Jean sighed and picked up the bowl of cold chicken pieces. "I am not a practical joker like you, Bobby." She crossed the kitchen and put the bowl in the microwave, heating it. The microwave beeped, and she took the bowl out, putting it in front of Mickie, sitting on the table waiting. "Here you are, Mickie. Now you three introduce yourselves while I go see what Scott wants."

                There was silence in the kitchen for a moment, then the boy said, "Hi. I'm Bobby. Bobby Drake."

                The girl licked a dab of ice cream from her nose and said, "I'm Jubilee."

                Mickie tilted her head, checking for the sound of any adult footfalls, then went to the trashcan. She perched on the edge of the counter and batted the ball of white paper out of the top, then jumped off the counter and picked it up in her teeth before jumping back onto the kitchen table. Ignoring the bowl of chicken, she dropped the paper in front of the boy.

                "You want to know what this is?" Mickie nodded. "You can't tell anyone else. Promise?" she nodded vigorously. "We're going to sneak out to the garage tonight and booby-trap Scott's bike. Uh, Scott is Jean's husband. He's like, the Assistant Principal here."

                A booby-trap? This sounded fun. Mickie moved over to the other side of the table and studied the drawing as Bobby and Jubilee started discussing their plan with her.

                When Jean came down ten minutes later, she found three empty bowls, two with spoons stuck in puddles of half-eaten melted ice cream, and one licked clean of chicken. She sighed and took the empty bowls to the sink, rinsed them, and left the kitchen.

                She didn't think to check the trash for that discarded drawing.


	3. A Practical Joke

Chapter 3: A Practical Joke

                Mickie paused, her own pads silent on the large flat stones that paved the way out to the garage. Behind her, her sensitive ears picked up the sound of scraping footfalls and hissed whispers. She rolled her eyes in chagrin. Her two fellow pranksters were creeping through the bushes beside the path, unable to hide themselves as well as she could. Her fur was black; all anyone would have seen had they looked out was a small black shadow creeping along the path to the detached garage. And, of course, the rustling bushes beside the path.

                "Bobby, like, move, already!" She heard Jubilee hiss at the older boy.

                "I can't move, Jubilee, I'm stuck!" he snapped back, a little too loudly.

                "So get yourself unstuck!" she hissed back.

                Mickie rolled her eyes and sat down in the middle of the path, picked up a paw, and washed it. At the rate these two were going, they'd never get out to the garage!

                It was only an hour before the other inhabitants of the mansion were due to awaken. Birds were singing in the trees, and the dark of night was slowly turning to the gray half-light of early dawn. Ahead of them, the garage skulked at the end of the path, waiting for them.

                "Ow!"

                "Will you be quiet already, Bobby, you idiot? Do you want everybody to come out here and figure out what we're doing with all this stuff?" Jubilee hefted the bag that had their prank supplies in it.

                Mickie sighed and began to wash her other paw.

                "No, I don't, but I can't move! I'm stuck!"

                "Aw, geez," and there was a sharp crack, sounding loud in the quiet of the predawn hours. "There. Now you're not stuck anymore. Move, Drake!"

                Mickie put her paw down and scampered ahead of the pair of pranksters, checking to make sure no one was about. Then she streaked across the path to the door of the garage and waited by the door.

                Bobby reached the door just moments later, followed by Jubilee, lugging the plastic grocery bag that carried the stuff they'd decided they'd use. She let out a small stream of continuous sparks  so that Bobby could see what he was doing to pick the locks on the garage door, then they opened the door and slipped inside.

                Jubilee opened the bag and took out the heavy-duty flashlight they'd brought. She switched it on, and the three kids followed its beam of light across the garage floor until they reached the section of the building devoted to the bikes belonging to various members of the X-men. Scott's black custom bike sat in the middle, flanked by Remy's and Logan's bikes.

                "Hold the light steady, Jubes. And give me that bag." He pulled it open and upended it, and out spilled the contents; a balloon, a bottle of ink, and some long, thin flexible tubing they had painstakingly painted black. Bobby unscrewed the cap on the inkbottle and began pouring black ink into the balloon, inflating it a little as he went. 

                Mickie watched interestedly. It was something like a water balloon, but with ink in it instead of water. When Bobby had the whole bottle of ink in there he carefully inserted several lengths of tubing into it. He wrapped black electrical tape around the neck of the balloon, preventing the tubing from popping out, then pushed a single piece of tape against the mouth of each tube, keeping the ink inside. Then he tucked the tubing into the cluster of other hoses and wires around the engine. Then he tucked the black ink-filled balloon back under the seat of the bike and taped that in place too.

                Jubilee was giggling so hard she could barely hold the flashlight steady. "How long you think it's gonna take him to figure out that all that black stuff is ink, not leaking oil?" she giggled. "I wish I could see his face when he finds out!"

                Bobby grinned. "I just hope he wears black jeans when he does this, or Jean's gonna have our hides for giving her extra laundry!" he grinned. "It's gonna take a lot of scrubbing to get that much ink off his jeans!"

                "Bobby!" Jubilee said in surprise. "I thought you were going to get washable ink!"

                "I did," Bobby said. "But it's still gonna take a lot of washing to get it all out!"

                They stepped back and looked at their work critically. Unless you were looking for it, you couldn't see the black balloon of ink, the black tubing, and the black tape. Scott would find it, but not until the balloon had emptied itself of ink from the pressure of him sitting on it.

                "I hope he gets on the bike the way he normally does," Bobby said after a moment.

                Jubilee rolled her eyes. "Bobby, this is Scott we're talking about! He wouldn't change a minute of anything he normally does, he's like, such a stick in the mud. Come on. It's almost time for everyone to be waking up."

                They packed their things back into the bag, Bobby being careful not to spill a single drop of ink, then scrambled back to the house. Once there, Mickie and Jubilee headed left, and Bobby headed for the boys' wing with a farewell wave and a wink. Jubilee scaled the tree easily, and climbed up the branch to her window as Mickie scrambled into her own bathroom window.

                She was not a moment too soon. As she leaped lightly from the windowsill to the floor, she heard her bedroom door open. It was Rogue. "Time tah rise an' shine, Mickie!" She opened the door a little wider. "Yah here?"

                Mickie came sauntering out of the bathroom, tail waving in the air as though she had just used the litter box. Rogue grinned and vanished into the bathroom, and moments later Mickie heard the unmistakable sound of her litterbox being cleaned. She waited until she heard the sound of fresh litter being poured into the box, then got up as Rogue came out of the bathroom. "Off we go tah breakfast now."

                The informal dining room was busy when she and Rogue came in. Plates and food were being passed around, and she jumped up onto one of the chairs as Jean put down a plate of pancakes in front of her. Mickie smiled in cat fashion and dug in.

                She was half through the first pancake when an apparently sleepy Jubilee slouched into the room. "Mornin'," she mumbled, doing a very credible imitation of a yawn. Mickie had to stifle the mental laughter before Jean heard it and bent her head over her plate, just as Bobby came in, with the same apparently groggy façade Jubilee was affecting. They ate with lazy indolence, carefully not looking at each other, until Scott finished his meal and got up. "I'm running into the Village to check the mail for Charles," he said to Jean with a quick kiss on the cheek. "Need anything I can pick up while I'm out?"

                "Just you," Jean said warmly, and kissed him back. Bobby rolled his eyes good naturedly as they kissed, then slipped out of his chair and headed off up the stairs. Moments later, seemingly casually, Jubilee did too. Mickie finished off the last of her pancakes and sauntered out of the dining room quietly, unnoticed, then once out of everyone's sight she raced for her room.

                Bobby and Jubilee were already there, giggling and whispering in her bathroom. Mickie bristled indignantly. "Keep your fur on, Mickie," Bobby said. "This offers us the best view of the garage." He adjusted his binoculars, which he'd swiped from his room on the way to hers, and peered through them at the back of the garage. '"He's just going in. Oh, this is gonna be fun!" Jubilee grabbed the binocs from him to have a look. "He's going in…he's going in…one, two, three, four five, six…" Mickie counted the seconds in her head along with them. He was walking into the garage…he was putting on his helmet…he was throwing his left leg over the bike, standing astride it…he was starting his bike… "eight, nine, ten…"

                The bike started up with a roar. Scott was leaning back…he was settling down…he was ready to drive away…and then he felt the wetness on his pant leg. He looked down. 

                Jubilee was giggling madly, rolling on the floor as they all heard the motorcycle turn off. Several minutes passed as Scott tried to trace the source of the oil leak. There was none, of course. It took only a few more seconds for him to find the ink balloon taped to his seat and the tubing cleverly tucked in among the other cables, wires, and hoses in his engine. And he let out a yell. Seconds later, he marched out of the garage, holding the black balloon which still dribbling a little ink from its tubes. And his pants (he had worn blue jeans, not black) were stained up and down the legs with the heavy, thick black ink. "JEAN!!" he was bellowing, as he broke into a run toward the mansion's back door. Bobby and Jubilee hastily dropped below the windowsill level, laughing hysterically and silently, as Mickie, quivering with laughter too, ran out of the bathroom and arranged herself on the bed, curling around herself and trying to make it look like she was asleep.

*                                                              *                                                              *

                "Scott! Scott, what…" Jean's jaw dropped as she took in his appearance. "My God, Scott, what happened?" She sucked in a breath as she looked at him. "What _is_ that stuff?"

                "Ink," Scott ground out through gritted teeth. "And I bet I know who put it there, too. BOBBY!" he bellowed, hoping Bobby was in earshot. "When I get done with you, you'll be scrubbing the hangar deck with a toothbrush!" 

                Jean, trying very hard not to laugh, grabbed a handful of newspaper from the pile meant for the recyclers and laid several sheets on the floor. "Stand on that while I get you a new pair of pants and some more underclothes." Scott stepped on the paper, fuming, as Jean left the kitchen.

                She came back down soon, holding a pair of jeans and a fresh pair of boxers. She closed the kitchen door and held it closed with her telekinesis as Scott stripped off the ink-stained jeans and boxers. Jean took the clothing to the kitchen sink, holding it under water, and sighed when the ink almost immediately started to run. "At least he used washable ink," she said. "What happened?"

                Scott inspected the limp balloon and the thin black tubing. "He taped a water balloon full of ink to my bike seat," he fumed. "I started the bike up, and sat down, and that caused the plugs at the end of the tubing to shoot out with the pressure coming from the balloon end. I thought the oil lines had sprung a leak." He saw her face. "Jean, it's not funny!"

                Jean tried very hard to keep her lips from twitching. "I didn't say it was, love," she said, soaking a towel at the sink and dabbing at the splashes on his face. They came off easily. "I'll have a talk with Charles while you're gone." She wanted to talk to two…no, three…pranksters first. She was fairly certain the new girl was involved with this, too. "Why don't you take my Miata for now? I'll have Bobby wash your bike. And his co-conspirators too."

                "Co-conspirators?" Scott perked up at those words, but Jean was already hustling him out of the kitchen as she slipped the keys to her little blue Miata into his hand. He was left staring at the kitchen door in bemusement. What did Jean know that he didn't?

*                                                              *                                                              *

                Mickie was just dozing off when her bedroom door opened. "Mickie, Jubilee, Bobby, I want to talk to you," Jean said evenly.

                Mickie rolled over and gave Jean her best, innocent-who-me look. Jean allowed a smile to tug at her lips momentarily before she pulled her stern schoolteacher face on. "Yes, you. And I know Bobby and Jubilee are hiding in your bathroom. I guess I should be happy that Evan is visiting his mother, or I would be talking to him too." She made a tsking sound as the bathroom door opened and Bobby and Jubilee came out. "Whose idea was this?"

                Jubilee and Bobby looked at each other, then Bobby hesitantly raised a hand. Jean nodded. "I thought as much. I want all three of you out front in ten minutes prepared to wash Scott's bike until not a single spot of ink remains on it. And when Scott comes back we'll discuss proper punishments." She snapped her fingers and waved them out of the room. The two teenagers walked out, crestfallen, and Mickie followed.

                They didn't say a word to each other until Jean had gone into the house and Bobby was busy soaping down the bike. Then he said gloomily, "We're gonna get stuck with cleaning the Blackbird's hangar with toothbrushes."

                Jubilee shook her head. "We had to do that, like, a week ago when we put the glue on Hank's desk chair, remember? We're probably going to have to wash, wax, and polish the whole Blackbird, or something like that." She looked off to the side, where Mickie was looking undeniably smug. "Don't think you're going to be able to miss out, Mickie," she admonished. "They'll change you back just for the punishment, just wait and see."

                They were rinsing the bike off when four boys Mickie hadn't seen before came around the side of the mansion. "Hey," the boy in front snickered. "Look, they got in trouble again."

                The other three boys laughed. Jubilee's good mood vanished as she put the hose down and picked up the soapy sponge. "Get lost, Derek."

                The boys, however, apparently had no intention of doing so. They gathered around Jubilee and Bobby and the bike. "Jubie got in trou-ble! Jubie got in trou-ble!"

                "Oh, grow up!" Jubilee made a face at the boy in the lead, who laughed.

                One of the boys spotted Mickie, sitting at the edge of the driveway with her tail wrapped around her front paws. He nudged at the other boy standing next to him. "Hey, look at the pussy-cat."

                Derek saw Mickie too. "Here pussy, pussy, pussy," he said, snapping his fingers. Mickie rose to her feet, her back arched, her fur bristled outward, and hissed at the boy. She did _not_ like being called a pussy.

                "Leave her alone," Jubilee snapped at the boy, "She's another student, like you. She just can't change back to her human form yet."

                Derek stared at Jubilee. "You're joking."

                "No, I'm not," she insisted. "So leave her alone. Shouldn't you be packing, anyway? Your parents will be here to pick you up." For a moment Derek looked like he might actually go away, but then Mickie moved away from the questing hand of the other boy, and he started to walk toward her. "Let me see if she's really a cat!" Mickie broke into a run. She wasn't about to sit there and let herself get pawed over by some rude punk!

                Jubilee and Bobby both screamed at Derek and his friends to leave her alone, but Mickie's fast run soon left them behind. Derek, however, could run almost as fast as she, and she couldn't keep up the sprint long. She took a wide turn and looped back toward the mansion, hoping to get back within sight of the kitchen window, where Jean was supposed to be monitoring their progress with Scott's bike. Once she got in sight of the window she'd be safe. She paused for a second to catch her breath, and that was her undoing.

                Derek reached for her in a flying tackle. Unfortunately for her, he misjudged his leap and grabbed her back leg just as she was getting up to run again. Mickie yowled as a searing pain flashed up her hip and spiked into her brain.

                The hand let go of her leg, but the damage was done. Mickie curled up in the grass, crying in anguish as the sharp, stabbing pain traveled up her leg. She didn't want the hateful boys to see her cry, so she turned her face downward, into the grass, sobbing with pain. The cool grass felt good to her hot forehead, and her skin slick with sweat from her run. 

                Jubilee and Bobby came up, hard on Lester's (the slowest boy in Derek's group) heels. The boys were standing in a little circle around something lying on the ground, and as Jubilee and Bobby came panting up, they saw a fully nude young girl lying in the grass, sobbing, her face creased in pain. Because of her state of undress, it was easy to see the horrendous double bulge of a dislocated hip sticking out under the pale skin. Medium-length black hair spread out, fan-like, around her head.

                Bobby snapped out of his stunned stupor first, yanking his shirt off over his head and touching the girl's naked shoulder. "Mickie?" he was careful not to look at anything that might embarrass her, though she was in no condition to notice such things. Her entire being was concentrated on the pain in her hip. "Jubilee, run, get Jean--"

                "Oh mah god," came a new voice. Rogue pushed her way through the knot of kids. "Derek, Kenny, Justin, Lester, get back inside. Y'all're confined tah your rooms 'til further notice. Bobby, if Ah lift her up, can yah get your shirt over her head?…That's it. Mickie?" she tapped the girl's shoulder gently. "Mickie, honey, can yah walk?"

                "Hurts," Mickie whimpered through gritted teeth and eyes screwed shut in anguish. 

                "Ah'll take that as a no," Rogue said, her voice low and comforting. "Hold on…" she touched the dislocated hip, and Mickie sucked in a breath of anguish. "It's just dislocated, nothin's broken, but Ah want Hank to look at you. He's our doctor," she said to the girl's startled look. She started to lift Mickie. "Jubilee, if yah please, run on 'head and let Hank know he's got a patient…" The other girl nodded, and raced off toward the mansion. "Bobby, take her otha arm, please?" Half-carrying Mickie, they started to make their slow way back to the mansion.


	4. Forgiven

Chapter 4: Forgiven

                Hank already had a sheet pulled down over the med table by the time Rogue and Bobby got to the medlabs with Mickie. Mickie gritted her teeth in anguish as they laid her as gently as they could onto the biobed. "What happened?' Rogue asked her as Hank began to scan the injured hip with a scanner.

                "Derek and his crew were, like, totally rude," Jubilee broke in. "They didn't believe me when I told 'em Mickie was a shapeshifter, and they all like, took off after her when she tried to run away."

                Mickie took up the thread of the story, gritting her teeth as Hank started to feel his way down her hip with his hand. "They chased me. I tried to get back to the house, but one of them tackled me, and when he went down OWWW!"

                Hank stepped back. "I am extremely sorry, my dear," he said. "But if you had tensed up before I snapped your leg back into its socket, you would have been in much more pain. As it is back in place now, the pain should be fading."

                Mickie flexed her leg tentatively. "The pain's almost completely gone," she said wonderingly. "How'd you do that?"

                Hank took off the latex gloves he wore. "The pain was coming from the stretched nerves in your tendons and muscles. Once those tendons didn't have to stretch anymore to keep your leg attached to your body, you stopped feeling the pain." 

                "I did," Mickie said wonderingly. "It feels just as good as new now!"

                Hank raised an eyebrow. "You are 'as good as new' now, my dear," he said. "However, I do think you should take it easy for a few days. No strenuous activity--"

                Jean and Scott chose just that moment to burst in on them, and Mickie pulled the shirt further down, hastily. She wasn't wearing anything but Bobby's shirt, and she would be really embarrassed if anyone saw anything they shouldn't. And since she didn't have fur now, the blush would _really_ show.

                Scott saw Bobby and Jubilee there, next to Rogue, and started to say something to them, but Jean hushed him with a touch on his arm. "Not now, Scott. Hank, what happened?"

                "Our young student was assaulted by Derek's crew, if I am not mistaken," Hank said grimly. "They tried to grab Mickie, and got hold of her leg. In the scuffle, it was dislocated. The pain caused her to revert to her normal form. Jean, you really must speak to Charles about that group of young men; they should not be able to get away with this kind of behavior."

                "I'll do that," Jean said determinedly. The current emergency cared for, she turned to the three guilty-looking kids.  "You three have an apology to make?"

                There was silence for a moment, then Bobby spoke sheepishly. "We were just fooling around, Scott. We didn't mean any harm. It's just…school's out for the summer, and we just…kinda went a little crazy."

                Jubilee piped up, "I'm sorry, Scott. It was just a joke, we used washable ink so it wouldn't ruin your pants. I hope it all washes out."

                Mickie sat up, dangling her feet over the edge of the exam table, and admitted, "I was in on it, too. We snuck out this morning to the garage and did it. I'm sorry."

                Scott surveyed the three guilty faces with a stern look, which softened as he took in Mickie's crestfallen look and sheepish face. "Jean said you were to wash my bike. Did you do that?" They nodded.

                "All right. I think you've been punished enough, Mickie. Bobby, Jubilee, you two really ought to know better…" Jean stopped him with a touch on his arm.

                "Go ahead. You're excused. Just…don't fool around with the cars and stuff in the garage, okay?" the three kids looked slightly disbelieving at the way they'd gotten off so easily, but didn't dare argue. Jean smiled. "All right. Get going. Scott, Hank, let's go talk to Charles about Derek's crew…"

                The doors to the medlabs closed behind Bobby's back, and Jubilee blew out her breath in a huge sigh. "Wow! I thought we were in for it! Thank God for Jean!"

                "I'll say," Bobby said. "Hey, I'll see you girls in a little while, okay? I gotta go find another shirt."

                "I have to go get some clothes on." Mickie said to Jubilee. "Come on in." She opened her room door and allowed the other girl to walk in. 

                She plunked down on the bed and pulled out Mickie's suitcase from under it. "Good thing your parents packed your clothes and stuff. Wouldn't it be embarrassing if, like, you didn't have any clothes right now? I mean, I could lend you some of my stuff, but you're taller than I am, and my stuff wouldn't fit you. Not well, anyway…" Mickie listened to the other girl ramble on as she grabbed a handful of clothing from the open suitcase, ducked into the bathroom and pulled off Bobby's shirt, replacing it with her own underclothing.

                After a month of wearing nothing but her own fur, it felt strange wearing clothes again. Strange, but good. She slipped into the shirt, and was mildly surprised to find that it was entirely too tight across her shoulders. Her jeans were too tight across her hips, and two inches too short in the leg. She groaned as she opened the bathroom door and stepped out. "My clothes don't fit anymore!" she wailed.

                She turned to look into the mirror, and almost gasped. She'd certainly grown! At least two inches. Her midnight black hair, a gift from her mother's Native American heritage, had gotten at least an inch longer, and the blue highlights in it were picked out even more prominently by the bright, early-afternoon sun streaming in her window.

                "Wow," Jubilee looked impressed. "You're prettier as a girl than you were as a cat." She walked up and stood next to Mickie in front of the mirror. "You know, except for the height, people would almost think we were twins?"

                Mickie looked at their reflections, then shook her head. "You're Asian, even with those blue eyes. Mine are a little lighter than yours. My mother's Native American, so my skin's a bit darker than yours, and…" she broke off as the other girl waved a hand in the air, chuckling.

                "All right, I get it already! But we do look a little alike, you know that?"

                Mickie nodded just as a knock sounded at the door. "Jubes? Mickie?" It was Bobby's voice.

                "Come on in," Mickie said. He opened the door.

                "Uh, Rogue wants us downstairs. Charles and Jean and Scott and Rogue are having a discussion down there, and they want to know exactly what happened."

                Mickie sighed, giving a last, completely ineffectual tug at her too-tight shirt. "We're coming."

                Four heads turned toward the three teenagers as they knocked, then walked into, Charles's study. Mickie looked around. She hadn't realized the study was so big; she'd assumed that it just seemed big to someone in the body of a little cat. "You wanted to see us, Headmaster?"

                "School is not in session," Charles said. "You may call me Mr. Xavier, or Charles if you wish. I am gratified to see you have regained your human form."

                "Mr. Xavier, then," Mickie said, seating herself in one of the burgundy plush chairs in front of his desk. "And you have no idea how gratified I am to be back!" That elicited a wry chuckle from all the adults. Jean was sitting beside Scott, Hank was sitting in a much more substantially built wing chair on the side of Charles's desk, and Rogue was sitting on the desk itself, her legs dangling over the side.

                "Could you please tell us what happened this afternoon?" Charles said.

                "Derek and Kenny and Lester and Justin were teasing us about getting in trouble again--" Bobby began.

                "They were so ignorant, they started making fun of us, like, and I told 'em to get lost--" Jubilee said indignantly.

                "They called me pussy!" Mickie blurted. "I hate being called pussy!"

                Xavier raised a hand to stem the torrent of words, and when the room was quiet again, he said, "Bobby. Go ahead, please."

                "Well, we were outside, washing the ink off Scott's bike when Derek and his crew came up. They immediately started teasing me and Jubes about getting in trouble again, and Jubilee told them to grow up and get lost. Then Justin saw Mickie sitting beside the driveway, and he tried to reach for her. Jubilee told him Mickie wasn't a cat, but he didn't believe her, and he tried to grab her. Mickie started to run, and they all chased her out into the orchard. Jubilee and I were afraid something might happen, like they did to Amara the last time, but she runs fast, and they followed her. I heard her scream, and we came running up, and Mickie was lying in the grass all crumpled up, like, and she was crying. I told Jubilee to go get Jean."

                Xavier turned to Mickie. "What did happen?"

                "The boys were chasing me," Mickie said angrily, "And the boy in the front...I don't know his name…tried to grab me in a flying tackle. He grabbed my right back leg. He was still grabbing it when he hit the ground, and it hurt so much I guess my body just changed back in shock."

                "Rogue came up just then and sent them all to their rooms and she told me to go let Hank know what happened while she and Bobby got Mickie up and took her down to the infirmary." Jubilee finished.

                Xavier sighed. "Jean, would you call the boys down here?" 

                Jean's eyes went unfocused for a moment as she reached out telepathically. "They disobeyed you," she said suddenly, to Rogue. "They're not in their rooms, they're…" her lips tightened, and her green eyes got hard. "They're ransacking Mickie's room!"

                Mickie jumped up out of her chair. "What?!"

                Scott and Jean and Rogue were already half out of their chairs. Xavier waved them out. "Go on, deal with them. Jean, link with me so I can see what's going on." 

"Will do, Charles," Jean said.

Mickie stared in horror as Bobby flung open her room door. Her clothes were flung all over the bed, dresser, chair, and nightstand; all her bras were strewn on the floor, and two of the boys were playing with her teddy bear! She shrieked indignantly as she raced in, snatching the bear they were throwing in the air and hugging him protectively, too furious to speak.

Bobby was under no such handicap. "Derek! What the hell are you doing in here, have you lost your mind!? You're not supposed to invade another student's room! And look what you've done!"

Derek actually had the presence of mind to look a tiny bit guilty, although it wasn't as guilty as he should have been feeling. "We just wanted to see if she's really a girl, man, we saw the litterbox in the bathroom… You use the litterbox when you're in human form too, pussy?" He snickered. He didn't see Scott and Jean exchange looks with Rogue behind Bobby.

_WHAM!_

Derek lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. Why was he lying on the floor? A milisecond later pain exploded in his jaw and he rubbed it as he stared up at Bobby, standing over him ready to whack him another one.

Scott stepped into the bedroom and caught Bobby's arm as he was winding up for another punch. "Bobby, ease up. We got it from here." Turning to the downed boy, he said coolly, "Get up."

Derek climbed to his feet, ashen-faced, wondering how much of the exchange Scott had seen. "He hit me..." he started to whine. Scott cut him off.

"He had every right to. You've wrecked another student's room…a _female_ student, may I add…and insulted her, as well as assaulting her and causing her serious bodily harm. You've gone too far this time, Derek."

Jean eased around the doorframe, absently noting the way Mickie had drawn close to Bobby, and the way Bobby had put an arm around her shoulders. She had something else to take care of; she'd think about that later. For now, though…"We got a call from your parents, they'll be here at three this afternoon. You will go up to your rooms and stay there," she said, her stern tone allowing for no argument. "When your parents come you will be leaving with them, and you will not be returning for the fall term. Charles has decided that this school is not the right place for you, and your parents will be informed of the many infractions you have made on the rules." She stepped aside, and gestured to the door. Rogue moved aside. The four boys turned silently and left. Jean nodded silently to Rogue, then she and Scott walked out right after the boys, probably to make sure they did make it to their rooms.

Rogue put her hands on her hips. "What a mess. Sugah, do yah need help cleanin' up?"

Mickie sat down on the end of her bed hard, feeling tears well up in her eyes. "They just…went through my room…like that…they didn't even stop to think…" Rogue sat beside her on the bed, hugging her, being careful not to touch her skin. "It's okay, sugah. They won't bother you again. Charles is kickin' them out." Mickie hugged her teddy bear to her chest, fighting back the tears. Bobby sat down on her other side and hugged her, and she hugged him back.

Rogue patted her back, tried to tug the end of the shirt down over the exposed skin of Mickie's lower back, and frowned when the tight shirt refused to go down. "Sugah, how long did yah get stuck in cat form?"

"A month."

Rogue sniffed. "Yah clothes don't fit anymore."

"I know." Mickie wiped away the last of her tears. "Mom and Dad gave Mr. Xavier some extra money to get me clothes if mine don't fit anymore, but I don't know how to ask him for some."

"Ah'll do it," Rogue patted her back and stood up. "Bobby. Yah got any plans for this aftahnoon?"

"No, why?" Bobby asked her.

"Well, yah just got yah license, figure yah might get some practice takin' Mickie…and Jubes…" she added quickly, seeing the younger girl's hopeful look, "…to the mall tah pick up some new clothes."

"Really?' Bobby brightened. He didn't get permission to go out without one of the 'adults' often, and he looked considerably brighter.

Rogue shook a finger at him. "Yah know what takin' girls shoppin' is like. Consider it a punishment for messin' with Scott's bike. Y'all get the room cleaned up, toss out the old stuff that don't fit, an' I'll be back soon with the money yer parents left yah, Mickie."

"That's awfully nice of you," Mickie said, sniffling. Rogue smiled and left the room.

Jubilee started gathering up clothes. "C'mon. Let's get this cleaned up. The sooner we get this clean, the sooner we can go to the _mall_!"


	5. Shopping

Chapter 5: Shopping

                "Can I ask a question?" Mickie said as Bobby turned off Graymalkin Lane and headed for the Salem Center mall.

                "Sure," Bobby said, keeping one eye on the road and turning the other one to Mickie, who had won the coin toss for the front seat. Jubilee was in the back, rummaging around in her purse for more bubblegum.

                "You said…back in Charles's study…that Derek and his crew had done something to another student?"

                "Yeah." The dimples around Bobby's lips disappeared as he frowned. "Amara. Scott and Professor Xavier told Derek and his friends that they was on probation for the rest of the school year after that, and that if they did anything wrong after that that they would be expelled."

                Mickie's eyes opened quite wide. "What did they do?"

                Bobby sighed. "It started out as a practical joke. They sneaked into the girls' showers and hooked the main water connections up backwards. The problem started when Amara got hit by the cold water when she turned on the shower. She was so startled by the sudden cold she ran out of the locker room wrapped in a towel and nothing else. Derek and his friends were in the hall, and they blocked her path and started tryingto pull her towel away from her. Jean was furious when she walked down the hall and saw them tormenting Amara. We all heard her screaming at them from the classrooms." 

 Jubilee's head popped up to the front from the back seat. "Of course, everybody could hear, like, everything she was saying because she totally _freaked_. I, like, have _never_ seen any of the teachers get so mad, least of all Jean. She just started yelling out loud and mentally. And she swore! She can swear like Logan when she gets mad enough." Jubilee grinned. "She was like, so embarrassed that she lost control like that, but the damage was done. We all had headaches until bedtime. And Derek and his friends had headaches until two days after. Nobody really had a whole lot of sympathy for them. Bullying isn't tolerated here."

Mickie smiled. "That's nice to know. I had a friend who went to a private boarding school like this one once and there was bullying and stuff all over the place."

Bobby shook his head. "You won't find that here. Bullies don't last long here; it's hard to hide prejudices and hatreds in a school that has three telepaths living in it, as well as an undetermined number of telepathic students. Professor Xavier is a telepath; so is Jean, and Elizabeth Braddock, who teaches European History and Japanese, rounds out the last of the last of the three. You can't get anything by those three."

Mickie blinked. "They read minds? Isn't that kind of an invasion of privacy?"

Bobby's nose wrinkled as he pulled to a stop at a stoplight. "They don't read minds, exactly," he said slowly. "It's more like they sense strong emotions and surface thoughts, and if something seems wrong, they take the student aside and talk to them. Usually the person being bullied is so miserable Jean can't help but notice, even without using telepathy. She's kind of the mother hen for all the kids here. Whenever anyone has a problem, they go to her. She's always ready to listen and help."

"What are the other teachers like?" Mickie asked.

"Scott's a d**k," Jubilee said, and Mickie turned and stared at the younger girl. Jubilee noted the look. "No, really. Logan says that all the time. Scott knows Logan says it, and he doesn't protest…too much." 

Bobby took one hand off the wheel and reached back to swat Jubilee on the upside of her head. "It's still not nice to repeat," he admonished her. "Come on, this is the new girl, after all. Give her a chance to at least meet Logan before you go quoting him all over the place."

"Who's Logan?" A memory surfaced, and Mickie remembered. "Oh, Logan's the one who smokes, right? He wears those cowboy boots and that hat and kinda has a funny accent…"

"Yep, that's him," Jubilee said, grinning as she plopped backward in her seat. "Me and him, we hang around together a lot. He wouldn't know what to do without me."

Mickie looked at Bobby. "He looks like he'd sooner eat one of us alive than hang around with us."

Bobby laughed so hard he almost ran a stop sign. "He looks like that on the outside, but he does care. Watch what happens when he sees one of the others get hurt in Phys Ed, or one of his self-defense classes. He gets all mother hen like. He cares, I think he's just too concerned with preserving his macho image."

"Yeah he does," Jubilee chirped from the back. "He's a big ol' softie at heart."

Mickie grinned, then said, "What about Miss Marie, and Mr. LeBeau?" She grinned. "Miss Marie was showing me my room, and Mr. LeBeau came in, and he picked me up (I was still in cat form) and he was rubbing my tummy, and _oooh, he is sooooo attractive_!"

"Ain't he?" Jubilee leaned forward. "Watch out, though. Him and Rogue are, like, lovebirds, even though he can't touch her; they're like, forever dancing around each other. Don't make difference to him, though; he amuses himself with a _wide_ assortment of female companionship whenever he likes."

'Why can't he touch her?"

Bobby started the car again, with a quick glance to make sure incoming traffic wasn't going to blindside him. "Rogue has this power that allows her to absorb energy from anyone she touches, skin to skin. She keeps every inch of her skin covered, that's why you'll see her wear gloves and long sleeves all the time. And Remy is empathic, as well as being able to kinetically charge objects and explode them."

"And he teaches Atomic Physics?"

Bobby gave Mickie an amused sidelong glance. "Don't take his class unless you're really seriously interested," he warned her. "Remy can be a very hard teacher, and he makes his coursework challenging. And very technical. I dropped out because I couldn't get interested in the work."

Mickie looked at him. "What about you? Are you a teacher? You don't look that much older than us."

Bobby grinned. "I graduated two years ago. I just hang around because it's so much fun teasing Scott, and because I really don't know where I'd go if I left here. This is my home."

Mickie digested this. "And what about you?" She asked Jubilee, turning to look at the other girl. "What about you? Is this your home too?"

"Yeah," Jubilee said, her face becoming serious. "Yeah, this is my home. I don't have anybody else related to me. The X--" she clapped a hand over her mouth, looked at Bobby, and then said, "The school's my home."

Mickie frowned. "'The X' what?"

Bobby pulled into the parking lot of the mall, parked, turned the engine off, and looked at Jubilee, then at Mickie, then said, "This is a secret. You _have_ to promise never ever to tell anyone, even if they try to make you."

"What secret?" Mickie was more curious than serious.

Bobby shook his head. "Uh-uh. You have to promise."

"Okay. What's the secret?"

Bobby grabbed her hand. "This is important, Mickie. People have died before revealing who and what we are. You have to promise the same thing. We could all of us be killed, in painfully slow ways, if the word gets out."

"Okay! Okay! I promise! What's the secret?"

Bobby sighed, looked at Jubilee, and they both looked at Mickie.

Mickie made an X over her chest. "Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye if I lie."

Bobby said, "You watch the news?"

Mickie frowned. "Aren't we getting off topic here?"

"No. No we're not. Trust me. Do you watch the news?"

Mickie settled back in her seat and crossed her arms. "Who doesn't?"

"You heard of the X-Men?"

Mickie sat bolt upright, as if struck by lightning. 'You guys are the X-Men?!" she yelped.

Bobby grabbed her hand to stop her excited fidgeting. "Yes. But it's a secret, for a lot of reasons. Very, very few people know that we're the X-Men, and we're all sworn to secrecy. If any of the bad guys we fight on a regular basis find out who and where we are, we're all dead. And even some of the government. There are a lot of people out there who hate mutants, Mickie, and a lot of them don't care which side you're on. If you're a mutant, to them you're automatically a bad guy. And what do you think would happen to the school, the students, and Professor Xavier if word got out? They'd almost certainly close the school and send all the students home, and the teachers would go to jail. _That can't happen_. A lot of our fellow X-Men have died rather than give up our secret. The world doesn't know it, but we've saved Earth's collective butt too many times to be shut down without something disastrous happening."

Mickie stared at him, her eyes round. "I can see that," she said finally, struck by the seriousness of the situation. "All right. I promise. I promise, I will never ever _ever_ tell anyone who and what you guys are. Even if they tie me up and stick me with needles or something gross like that." She made a face.

"It may come to that," Bobby said. "You never know. It could happen to any one of us; me, you, or Jubilee."

Jubilee snapped her gum and reached for the door handle. "All right. Enough serious stuff. Let's go shopping!"

Mickie climbed out of the car a little more slowly, thinking about what she'd just been told. Bobby took her arm gently. "You okay? It's kind of a shock to some people. And we don't usually tell everyone; I only figured we'd tell you because you seem like you can keep a secret."

"I'll keep it," Mickie said, "As long as you promise me something."

"What?" Bobby asked guardedly.

"Can we hit the food court first? I have this craving for a burger with everything on it. It's been a month since I last had one."

Bobby laughed, and linked Mickie's arm with his left arm, and Jubilee with his right. "Sure. I'm a little hungry myself."

They stopped first at a McDonald's in the mall's food court, and Mickie satisfied her craving for the burger by stuffing herself with two Big Macs and a huge Coke. Jubilee and Bobby watched her eat with some amusement, which only increased when she devoured the remainders of their fries as well. Finally when every bit of food had been eaten she sat back with a sigh.

"You sure you had enough?" Bobby said, highly amused at the way she'd eaten. "You eat like you haven't tasted food in a month."

"Well I haven't!" Mickie defended herself. "Mom and Dad got tied of me experimenting with food in the refrigerator. They were convinced that constant throwing up couldn't be healthy, and they restricted me to cat food."

"Cat food! Yuck!" Jubilee made a face. "Did you actually eat the stuff?"

Mickie grimaced. "A lot of the stuff was horrible. Simply horrible. And people wonder why their cats don't eat?" she snorted. "Some of it, though, wasn't so bad to a cat's tastebuds. But I'll still take a Big Mac any day!" She sat up, and flushed as she burped. She hid her mouth with her hand as her two companions laughed, and then they emptied their trays and headed out to the mall.

The girls spent a lot of time in the various clothing shops, dragging Bobby in and out of shops that, to him, all sold the same stuff. He did perk up interestedly when they went into a lingerie store, and spent some time watching Jubilee and Mickie look at little scraps of lace that made him blush when he imagined the two girls actually wearing any of them. The salesgirl spent most of the time frowning at him, and finally he walked up to them and told them, quietly, that he was going to wait for them outside the lingerie store.

They took so long to come out that he was seriously considering going in to find out what was taking so long. Just as he was about to go in, however, they came out giggling under their breaths, and he frowned when he saw them. "Jubes, Mickie, what--" he started to say, and was cut off as they each grabbed an arm and hauled him physically away from the door to the store, not stopping until they were in the middle of another crowd of teenagers. Jubilee and Mickie headed up the escalator without a pause, and finally Bobby balked when they reached the upper level. "What have you done?"

Jubilee pointed down. He followed the direction of her finger and gasped, then turned around, leaned up against the rail of the walkway, and started laughing so hard he had to sit down. "How in the name of God did you manage to do that?" he asked Jubilee, who was giggling too.

"It was all Mickie's idea," Jubilee finally gasped out. "I distracted the saleslady with a question about something, and she ducked around the curtain and changed the display. Isn't it funny?"

The mannequins in the store window were now wearing underwear on their heads, and their arms were upraised. One mannequin was hugging another; the third one was holding its head casually in one outstretched hand.

Bobby smacked Mickie on the upside of her head, like he had done to Jubilee in the car. "How the heck did you do that?"

Mickie giggled too. "I got a job last summer working in a dressmakers' shop. I had to learn how to manipulate the mannequins there to make sure the dresses I sewed fit. I just ducked into the window and rearranged the arms. It was easy."

By now, a crowd of laughing shoppers were crowded around the window, laughing and pointing at the mannequins on display. The saleswoman who had glared at Bobby appeared in the window and began to rearrange the mannequins, restoring them to their former positions. She looked up, saw the three teens standing on the walkway above the shop, and pointed at them. A moment later, a man wearing a uniform started making his way to the escalator, clearly bent on apprehending the girls.

"That's our cue," Bobby said, and they immediately vanished into another crowd of kids heading for the front door. It was a rule Bobby had learned long ago; if you hang around the scene of the crime you'll get caught. He didn't breathe easy until they were out of the mall and heading for the car.

"We all gotta swear we won't tell Jean or Scotty about this," Jubilee snickered as the car pulled out of the lot. "Or Ororo. They'll get really upset."

"Cross my heart," Mickie said, laughing.

"And hope to die!" Bobby and Jubilee both finished for her, and they all laughed.


	6. I, Rat

Chapter 6: I, Rat

                "Hey, Mickie--"

                Mickie yelled in shock and jumped about a foot in the air as her room door opened and Bobby's head poked in. "I'm NAKED, do you freakin' mind!?" She screeched at the top of her lungs. Bobby's face went bright pink as his eyes squeezed shut and he withdrew. Mickie huffed out a breath and hurriedly pulled a pair of her new jeans toward her as she pulled off the nightgown she'd been trying on. When she was decently covered, she stuffed all the lingerie into a bag and shoved it under her bed, then went to her room door and opened it. "What do you want?"

                Bobby's face was still averted, and the tips of his ears were bright pink. Mickie sighed. "You can look now, I'm decent." Slowly he turned toward her, still moving as though he were afraid of getting yelled at.

                Mickie grabbed his arm, pulled him into her room, shut the door, and shoved him into a chair. "You didn't come here just to stare at my naked body, did you?" She tried to sound annoyed, but really, Bobby looked so cute with the tips of his ears pink that she couldn't help chuckling to herself…

                "No! no, I didn't know--I mean, I didn't expect you to be—oh, hell." Bobby buried his face in his hands.

                There was a soft tap on the door, and Jubilee's voice said, "Mickie? Is Bobby in there?"

                "Yes," Mickie said, sighing. So much for her plans. She wanted a nice, quiet evening; first trying on her new clothes, then a long hot shower, and a trip upstairs to the library to read the rest of the night. Looked like these two had other plans, judging from the way Jubilee's eyes were sparkling.

                Jubilee bounced into the room, and Mickie had to groan. Her room seemed plenty big enough for her, but somehow, when Jubilee walked into a room the room seemed to shrink exponentially. Her personality was incredibly big for such a small girl.

                Jubilee stopped, looked at Bobby, looked at Mickie, looked at Bobby again. "Well, did you, like, ask her yet?"

                "Ask me what?"

                "Uh, well, I hadn't exactly had a chance yet, I mean, I just got here and she wasn't decent…" And Bobby flushed to the roots of his sandy blond hair.

                Jubilee gawked at him. "You mean you, like, just walked right into a girl's room without asking if she was decent first? Bobby! I thought you knew better!" Bobby cringed in his chair, seeming to shrink into himself, and Jubilee threw up her hands in disgust. "Without her the plan won't work, and she's definitely not gonna say yes now that you've totally like, embarrassed her!"

                "**I'm going to say yes to what?!**" Mickie shifted, adding several inches to her usual five foot three height and adding several decibels to her voice in the process. "**Will someone please tell me what's going on?!"**

                Both Bobby and Jubilee jumped a little, then looked guilty. "Uh, we were, like, wondering," Jubilee began nervously "If you'd help us out with this little prank we want to do to Hank…"

                "Hank…the big furry blue doctor?" Mickie asked. When Bobby nodded, Mickie frowned. "But he's nice. Why would you want to play a prank on him?"

                "Because it's fun!" Bobby squirmed. "He doesn't really mind it when I play tricks on him, not the way everybody else minds. At least, not as much," he finished quickly.

                "What do you want to do?" Mickie's eyes were still narrowed.

                Bobby stopped squirming. "He's doing this experiment with this rat right now, working on a chemical to increase it's intelligence. I was thinking, maybe Jubes and you could sneak in while he's working, and when he mixes his chemicals I could come in and distract him so he spills the chemicals. Jubilee could paf them with her fireworks, and when the smoke clears, you could be sitting in the rat's place. And you'd sit up and start talking to him or something, and he'd think his experiment actually went right, and…" Bobby ran out of breath.

                Mickie sat down and laughed. "Oh, gosh. You guys must drive the adults nuts. How often do you get grounded?"

                "About once every couple of weeks or so." Bobby was unrepentant. "So are you gonna do it?"

                Mickie frowned. "Hey, I just got changed back to my human form. I'm not going to spend a month in a rat's form." She closed her eyes, bringing a picture of herself up in her mind. As she had done when she had shifted into the form of a cat, so she did now, transforming into a rat. This time, though, mindful of the lesson she had learned, she kept the image of her own vocal cords firmly in the shifted picture.

                When she opened her eyes her room was suddenly bigger. A LOT bigger. She blinked, looked down. Right in front of her eyes was a long, narrow, pointed nose with whiskers sprouting from either side. She held up her hands, and found them tiny, hairless pink things, tipped with small claws. She felt her body, confirming she was hairy all over, then twisted her head around and checked behind her, lifting one long, skinny, hairless pink tail. "Yikes!" she gulped. Her voice came out high and shrill, really squeaky, but at least she could talk.

                Jubilee and Bobby both towered over her. It was slightly unnerving, seeing hands the size of her body coming down, but she scolded herself firmly for paying attention to a normal rat's instincts and jumped up on Bobby's hand.

                "Wow," Bobby breathed. "You look just like Hank's rat!"

                "Yeah, ya do, but can you change back?' Jubilee asked. 'That's, like a really, really important part of this joke. Or it won't be a joke at all."

                "PUT ME DOWN!" Mickie shouted as loud as she could to Bobby. It took a few tries before the older boy got the message, but he did put her down finally. 

                Mickie scampered across the floor to her bathroom, disappearing inside. Jubilee very considerately followed her and closed the door behind her, and Mickie sat up on the cold tile, closing her eyes and picturing herself changing back. 

                It didn't work.

                Tears filled her eyes, and she fought them back as she closed her eyes and tried again. Nothing. She let out a tinny, squeaky wail of despair and buried her pointed nose in her front paws.

                "Mickie? You okay? I'm coming in." And before Mickie could react, Jubilee pushed open the door and stepped in. Her foot came down squarely on Mickie's tail, and Mickie squealed in pain.

                And suddenly the bathroom was crowded with two bodies, Jubilee's and Mickie's. Mickie realized she was human again, and naked, split seconds before Jubilee did, and she reached out and whipped a towel around her nudity.

                Jubilee blinked, but to her credit, reacted smoothly and wordlessly. She stepped backward out of the bathroom, grabbed for Mickie's clothes, which were sitting on the floor where she'd abandoned them, and opened the door the tiniest bit to shove them through the door. "Thanks," Mickie called to her.

                Alone again, Mickie put the clothes on the sink counter and closed her eyes again, shifting into cat form. When she was satisfied she was fully a cat again, she extruded one sharp claw and scratched the back of her other paw. The sudden pain, as tiny as it was, sent her reeling back into her own form.

"Got it!" she exulted, hurriedly dressing in her own clothes and opening the bathroom door. Bobby and Jubilee looked up quizzically as she came out. "Got what?"

                "I figured it out! I was in the bathroom and I figured out how to change back. I have to scratch myself, or somehow jolt my nerves, and then I change back. Yeah, we can do the trick." Her blue eyes sparkled as she grinned. "So when do we do it?"

*                                                              *                                                              *

                Hank looked up as Bobby strolled into his lab, and instantly went on alert, although he remained outwardly relaxed. "What brings you into my fortress of solitude on such a fine evening, my thermally challenged young friend?"

                "Oh, nothing," Bobby said, waving a hand dismissively, trying to act like nothing was wrong. His deliberately careless demeanor convinced Hank something was afoot. He leaned back in his chair, outwardly looking as though he were mixing chemicals while inwardly he was checking out his visitor carefully. Bobby wasn't holding anything in his hands, however. Maybe the Joker was taking a break, and really was 'just visiting'…

                He concentrated on the titration in front of him, carefully dispensing small drops of another liquid into the beaker he was holding and shaking the beaker thoroughly between drops. "Here, Bobby," he said to the younger man. "Please take this dropperful and dispense it into the water dish of Master Herbert, there." He indicated a large, spacious ferret cage sitting on the floor in one corner. A huge, fat white rat lazed in the corner of the cage. "Be careful that the liquid does not touch the sides of the cage, however; if the chemical touches metal the metal will react. The result will not be amusing."

                Bobby opened his eyes wide. "You're feeding Herbie explosive compounds?"

                "Herbert," Hank corrected absently, watching as Bobby neared the cage with the dropper in his hand, loaded with the clear liquid. "The reactive chemical in the solution will become inert once it bonds with the H2O molecules in the water, leaving only the potent substances. If I am right, it should trigger the growth of new brain cells."

                "Really," Bobby said, sounding impressed, although he knew all of that already from looking at Hank's notes to plan this particular joke. He positioned the dropperful of liquid over the open water bowl, and started to drop the solution in the bowl. As Hank, satisfied, turned away from him and picked up a clipboard, Bobby unlocked the cage and grabbed Herbie. The rat, used to being handled, did not object. Bobby carefully handed the rat to Jubilee, who replaced the rat in his hand with a glowing little spark, and Bobby placed that on top of the cage. Then Mickie bounded into the cage and took Herbie's place with a twitch of the whiskers, and Jubilee exploded the small spark.

                The explosion was loud in the silence of the lab, and Mickie squealed, a high-pitched sound of alarm. The spark might look tiny to a human, but to a rat the spark looked huge. And the sound was deafening. She curled up in the corner of the cage, not having to pretend very hard to give a convincing display of fear.

                Hank sprang at the cage, whose top now had a peculiarly large dent in it, and took the trembling rat out of the cage, holding it in one hand as he snatched the dropper out of Bobby's hand, slightly annoyed. "Bobby, I told you the dispensing of the liquid should not include touching any part of the metal cage with the liquid! I shall need to purchase a new cage for Herbert. Are you okay?" he asked the rat, stroking its head with one big blue finger.

                The rat raised its head and said, quite clearly, "Don't do that again!"

                Hank was so surprised he dropped the rat. "My stars and garters, the experiment was supposed to increase brain cell growth, but I did not expect it to take effect so quickly! Herbert, can you understand me? Bobby did not mean it…" and so saying, Hank put the rat back down in its cage and fairly ran to the lab table, searching through the piles of notes to find the specific formulas to find out what chemicals he'd used in the solution.

Bobby was having difficulty controlling his laughter. Jubilee, hidden in a darkened corner of the lab on the other side of the shelving that held all of Hank's chemicals, was doubled over. Mickie, inside the cage, was shaking. Not with fear, but with laughter.

The door to the lab opened, and Logan came in. "Hey, Jubes," He growled to the corner, without even looking in that direction, "Yer favorite movie's on TV. Wanna watch?" Then he took another sniff, and narrowed his eyes. "Hank," he said, "Why's the new kid in the cage?"

Hank turned around on his stool comprehension dawning in his eyes, and Jubilee burst out of her corner, pounding her tiny fists on his chest. "Wolvie! You just ruined the joke!!!"

"What joke?" But Logan's eyes were sparkling with fun.

Hank opened the door of the cage, and Mickie crept out, scampered off the table, and disappeared behind the rack of shelves. Jubilee tossed her clothes behind the rack of shelves, and they all discreetly turned their backs awhile she shifted and got dressed. Jubilee handed Herbie back to Hank, and the rat was returned to his cage. He squeaked indignantly at being returned there from Jubilee's shirt pocket, but when Hank put a couple bits of rat treats for him, he settled down and nibbled contentedly.

Mickie came out from behind the racks, dressed. Hank looked at the three kids from over the bridge of his glasses. "Which one of you came up with this idea?"

Slowly, Bobby raised his hand. Hank sighed. "Tomorrow after breakfast, Bobby, I would like you to report here. All three of you, in fact. Bobby, the labels of my chemical jars need replacing. I have been meaning to do that for some time now, but have not yet found the chance. You have just volunteered. Jubilee, you will wash and sterilize all of my test tubes, beakers, and other assorted pieces of equipment. Mickie, as you have now demonstrated your ability to shift into different forms, and to extricate yourself from those forms, I shall put you to work cleaning out and straightening the cage Jubilee and Bobby and yourself have bent from your prank."

The three teenagers groaned. "I thought you said he wouldn't get mad," Mickie whispered _sotto voce_ to Bobby.

"I never said that," Bobby said back at the same volume. "I said he didn't get as mad as the other adults do here. I didn't say he wouldn't get mad period."

"See if I ever let you talk me into another joke!" Mickie grumbled to him as they all turned around and started to walk upstairs.

Logan laughed at her. "Don't promise ya won't, kid," he said. "Bobby can be really persuasive. An' this one," He rumpled Jubilee's hair, "can get ya ta do anythin' jus' by lookin' at ya with them big blue eyes." He snickered. "Besides, there's so much fun ta be had playin' practical jokes on us 'dults, huh?" He leaned over to whisper in Bobby's ear. Bobby's eyes widened, and he gave a tiny gasp. Logan nodded, and a slow smile spread over Bobby's face.

Logan took Jubes off down one hallway as soon as they reached the top of the steps, and Bobby was about to head off in the other direction toward the boys' wing when Mickie stopped him. "What did he say?"

Bobby paused for a moment, looking undecided, and then shook his head. "I'll tell you later," he said. "I have to check on some things first." And he disappeared down the other hall and into his room.

Mickie stared after him, then shook her head in puzzlement and continued on to her own room. He'd tell her when he was ready, she guessed. 


	7. Logan's Tip

Chapter 7: Logan's Tip

                "Yo, Hank!"

                Bobby raised an eyebrow as he poked his head into the empty lab. "He's not here. He must have stepped out. Come on, if we hurry maybe we can get our chores done before he comes back and he thinks of something else he can do to us." Bobby stepped in, followed by Jubilee and Mickie.

                With the lights off, none of the three saw the intricate tangle of rope woven between Hank's strategically placed chair, lab table, mobile shelving unit, and computer station.  They had no idea it was even there until Bobby tried to take a step over to the sink, and tripped over a strand of the rope.

                Everything happened at once. 

                Something heavy came flying at him from off to the side; he had just enough time to raise one hand, deflecting it from hitting his head. It didn't, however, keep him from overbalancing. He tried to take a step back, tripped over another length of rope, fell backward, and landed in a trough of water with a wet splash that caused most of the water to spill from it. Bobby had, however, already started morphing into his ice form in surprise, and suddenly found himself sitting in a block of ice.

                Jubilee had taken a step toward the sink, and tripped over another strand. From the ceiling came a shower of multi-colored paint, which came down in a river over her head as she screamed in shock and outrage, and engulfed her in a coating of yellow, blue, green, and red paint.

                Mickie had started to go over to the cage in the corner, and stepped on something that moved under her foot. She barely had time to realize it was something set up on a see-saw on the floor before something wet and cold landed on her face, blocking out her view, and she tasted banana cream in her mouth. She screamed in shock as well, clawing at her face, trying to clear the thick, creamy stuff from her nose and mouth and eyes, so she could breathe and see.

                Hank stepped out from the corner of the lab, switched on the light, and stood there petting Herbie as he smiled smugly at the three teenagers. "Ah, the tables have turned," he said, chuckling. Bobby howled in anger, reaching for the edge of the table to pull himself up, but the ice block refused to come free of the trough and he simply managed to bring the table over on top of him. Hank grinned as Bobby went back down under the falling table. "Literally, it appears." He walked calmly across the lab, lifted the table, and said to Bobby calmly, "Are you now going to apologize, my friend, for the prank you pulled yesterday? Or shall I refill the trough with additional water?"

                "All right, all right!" Bobby knew when he was beaten. "All right, I give up! Yes, I'm sorry!"

                "So'm I." Jubilee said, rather indistinctly because of the paint covering her face and mouth.

                "Me three!" Mickie growled from under her cream-pie mask. Hank walked over to his lab chair, bent, and untied the rope from the leg of the chair. "Then I shall return to my work, and you, my young friends, have a great deal of cleaning up to do." He turned to his computer, ignoring the chorus of groans from behind him as the three kids started to clean themselves and the mess up.

*                                                              *                                                              *

"So what did Logan tell ya yesterday?" Jubilee asked Bobby as they were sitting at the kitchen table eating lunch later. They had spent the entire morning cleaning up Hank's lab after his prank on them, and all three were tired.

                Bobby raised an eyebrow. "Logan didn't tell me anything." 

                Jubilee howled in mock frustration and swatted him with her open hand. "Bobby! Come on, we're dyin' to know! Like what did he tell you, already!?"

                Bobby laughed as he put down his egg salad sandwich. "He told me Jean was doing her and Scott's laundry today, and that she'd left their basket of stuff down in the laundry room last night, and that she was going shopping this morning. She won't be back until late this afternoon, knowing her and Ororo. So I swiped it. There's mending in there…socks and stuff that have holes in it."

                "What were you planning to do with it?" Jubilee asked, but Mickie already had an idea.

                "You want me to…"

                "Yeah," Bobby grinned. "I figured, since you worked in a dress shop, you might be able to…tweak…some of the mending a little…They'd never think you did it, especially since Jean's mending skills are bad enough to make a cat laugh."

                Mickie shifted her face into cat form and laughed, before changing back. "I tried doing that to my parents once. I opened the toe seam of the socks and sewed up the sock tubes. Oh, Dad had a fit when he put his socks on upside down!"

                "Can you do anything else?"

                "What else is inside the basket?" Mickie brushed the crumbs off her lap and took her plate to the sink. "Come on, let's go look." They hurried up the stairs to Bobby's room.

                He pulled the laundry basket out from under his bed, and Mickie and Jubilee fell to their knees, rummaging in the basket. "Oh, look, a pair of Scott's pants! Hey, the pocket's like, all ripped out. Can you put it back in?"

                Mickie took the garment from Jubilee, examining it. "Yeah, I could. I could sew the pocket shut…or you know what, I could sew a flap into the bottom of the pocket so it feels like the pocket's all right, but it'll have a hole in it and anything he puts in the pocket will fall out while he's walking…"

                Jubilee giggled. "Oh, yeah, that would be precious. But can you make it look like Jean's doing?"

                "If I knew what her sewing looked like, yes."

                Bobby rummaged under the bed again, tossing out socks, shirts, shoes, underclothing, t-shirts and old jeans before finally coming up with a badly-mended button-up shirt. "Jean tried to fix this for me a while back. See what you think."

                Mickie inspected the shirt. The collar had torn free of the shirt, and Jean had tried to sew it back on using clumsy, awkward stitches. She had also gotten the collar twisted around, so the underside was facing upward. "Seamstress she is not," Mickie grinned. "Look at this. Yes, I can make it look like she did the mending; it won't be hard." She struggled to keep her voice innocent as she said, "I can fix this dress shirt, if you like…"

                "Oh, really? If you can, that'd be great!" Bobby was looking into the basket, looking at the items in it, and didn't see the gleam in Mickie's eye, or the sly grin she gave Jubilee. Jubilee stifled her own laughter as best as she could, and grabbed the basket. "We'll just take this off to Mickie's room," she told Bobby cheerfully. "We'll put the basket back when we're done with it."

                "Okay." Bobby promptly lost interest, starting instead to pick over the stuff he'd tossed out from under his bed. "Oh, geez, this is where my sock went…I've been looking for this one all week…" 

Jubilee shut the door to his room and giggled as she hefted the basket. "Come on, Mickie, let's see what we can do with this stuff."

Once in Mickie's room they upended the basket on her bed. Socks spilled out, pants and shirts and underclothing spread themselves out all over the bed, including (to Mickie's secret embarrassment and Jubilee's utter delight) a sheer negligee that belonged to Jean. Jubilee held it up, giggling. "I wonder what Scott thinks when he sees her walking around in this?"

Mickie raised an eyebrow and looked at Jubilee. "Probably the same thing Bobby thinks when he sees you walking around in your pajamas. Remember the one you wore last night, when we all couldn't sleep and we came down and pitched into that gallon tub of ice cream? You dropped a glob of ice cream on your chest, and I swear Bobby was thinking seriously about leaning over and licking it off."

"Really?" Jubilee frowned. "I totally didn't catch that. Oh, wow." She giggled. "Maybe I'll tease him a little…"

"You're terrible." Mickie giggled as she got out needle and thread. "Come on. Let's see what we can do with this stuff."

She fell silent, working steadily through the pile. She didn't alter all of the clothing; a few socks here and there, 'adjusted' the pockets so that their contents would fall through the pant leg and to the floor while the wearer was walking, and then, in a mischievous turn of mind, she  carefully altered an apparently-new pair of Jean's jeans to make it appear that Jean had bought them a size too small.  It was easy; a bit of elastic, and the waistband shrank two inches.

She was putting all of the laundry back into the basket when there was a sound of the front door slamming. Jubilee stuck her head out of Mickie's door, listened for a moment, and then closed the door swiftly. "They're back! Jean and 'Ro are back!"

Mickie stood, holding the basket. "Which room are they going to?"

Jubilee listened to the sounds of footsteps. "Sounds like they're going to 'Ro's."

"Okay." Mickie went to the door, listened for a second, then said, "I'll take the basket back downstairs. You keep an eye out for them. If Jean looks like she's coming down, distract her!"

"Okay," Jubilee said, giving Mickie a thumbs-up signal. "Can do."

Mickie hurried down to the basement, dropped the basket of clothing off in the laundry room, making sure the basket was aligned with the other baskets of mending that had to be done. Ororo's mending basket had a few articles of Hank's clothes and a pair of Xavier's pants in it; Mickie decided, with a snicker, that everyone knew Jean's mending was bad, and therefore got Ororo to do most of it. Scott was just unfortunate enough to be married to Jean, and so didn't have an excuse to ask someone else to fix his clothes. Poor man.

She got back to her room with no difficulty, and Jubilee heaved a sigh of relief when she walked in. "They haven't left Ororo's room yet." She said. "They must have gotten clothes or something, cause, like, they're still up there." She indicated the closed door halfway down the hall that opened into the short flight of stairs to Ororo's attic room.

Mickie nodded. "She'll be going down to the laundry room soon. Maybe you'd better scoot. If she discovers what we did to their stuff, she'll explode."

"I'm gone," Jubilee grinned, and scooted out the door.

Mickie arranged herself innocently on the bed, picking up Bobby's shirt and starting to pick out the clumsy stitches that held the twisted collar to the shirt. Shaking her head at the ineptness of the mending, she set about removing the collar completely and turned the entire collar upside down before beginning to sew it back on. Bobby wouldn't figure it out until someone saw the seam at the back of the neck and told him. Guys were oblivious like that.

She was in the middle of the collar when her room door opened, and Jean poked her head in. Under her arm she held the basket Mickie had just sneaked back down to the laundry room; Mickie had to fight extremely hard not to give in to the giggles that simmered in the back of her throat.

Jean smiled wearily when she saw the shirt Mickie was sewing. "You must be better than I am with needle and thread," she said wryly, coming in and sitting down on Mickie's bed. "Do you mind if I sit with you while I do my mending? It's nice having someone to talk to."

Mickie tried to find an excuse to say no, but couldn't come up with one. Finally she nodded weakly, and Jean came in, set the basket down on the floor, and took the first article of clothing out.

                Bobby peered around the edge of his room's doorframe, to see Jubilee peeking around hers. 'What's going on?" he whispered.

                Jubilee whispered back, "Jean's in there doing the mending with Mickie! They're talking in there…I don't know how she's keeping a straight face!"

                Bobby clamped a hand over his mouth, grabbed Jubilee's wrist, and dragged her into his room. Once inside, he fell backward on his bed, chortling heartily, as Jubilee herself rolled on the floor laughing hysterically. They both sat there, listening to the vague sound of voices, until Jean finally carried her basket to the room she shared with Scott, dropped it off, and went downstairs to help fix dinner.

                It took a lot of effort for the three teens to keep straight faces when they finally went down to dinner. Scott and Jean ate slowly, unaware of the three pranksters' doings of the day. Finally they finished what was on their plates, and Scott stood up. "Come on, Jean," he said gently. "Time to get ready."

                "Ready? Where are you going?" Jubilee perked up.

                "Out," Scott said shortly. Turning to Charles, he said, "We'll be out all night, so don't worry about leaving the security system offline for our return, okay? Thanks, Charles." He ushered Jean out of the dining room.

                They were all done with their meal, and Ororo and Rogue were gathering the plates to take to the kitchen before bringing out the dessert when Scott and Jean came back down. Jubilee choked on the sip of juice she'd just taken; Mickie looked very hard at her plate, feeling like her insides were going to turn to jelly. Bobby had a very slight tinge of frost on his cheek, like he was trying to hide a blush.

                Scott was wearing the pants Mickie had 'altered' that day. So was Jean.

                "I can't understand it," Jean said worriedly as she tugged at the waistband of her jeans. "I swear I just bought these two days ago. And they're already tight. Am I getting fat?" she asked Scott worriedly.

Scott raised an eyebrow. "You look fine, sweetheart," he said, and Mickie made a gagging face to Jubes and Bobby behind the couple's back. Jubilee almost choked again.

                They headed for the back door, and Scott picked his car keys off the hook he hung them on. He stuffed them casually into his pocket, then reached for Jean's jacket. As he helped her shrug it on, the hole in the bottom of the pocket opened and his keys slid down the side of his leg, falling in a heap by his shoe. And something else.

                Logan was just coming in the back door from smoking outside, and snickered, picking up Scott's keys and the flat little square packet. He held it up, pretending to look at it, though it was really so that everyone in the room could see the label. It said 'Trojan' on the outside of the plastic, and everyone knew what was inside; a condom. "Heh," He snickered. "Guess I know what's on yer mind, eh, Cyke? Matter of fact, guess we all know what's on both yer minds." He tossed the packet back at Scott. "Have fun. Don't wear him out, Red." And he turned and made his way back to the dining room table.

                Scott's face was almost as red as his glasses. Jean's face was flaming. Without another word they hurried out, slamming the door behind them, and through the partially open window they heard Scott tell Jean, "See if I ever let you fix a hole in my pants again!"

                The entire dining room cracked up. Mickie didn't have to hide her laughter anymore; she put her forehead down on the kitchen table and laughed until tears came to her eyes. Even Xavier was guffawing. Bobby and Jubilee gave her a 'high five' sign before they all joined in the general merriment.

                Logan lingered in the dining room until the three kids got up, then followed them out into the hall and upstairs. "Ya did that, didn't ya, Bobby?"

                Bobby leaned back against the banister and held his sides as he went into another fit of laughter. "Mickie did, actually," he admitted. "She used to work in a dressmaker's shop. She sewed the pocket so it would look like it didn't have a hole in it, but as soon as something was put into it the hole would open and dump the contents out. We didn't think it would work this well, though."

                Jubilee giggled. "That was, like, so funny, wasn't it, Wolvie," she squealed. "Oooh, I'm gonna be laughing over that vision of Scott's face for a reeeallly long time." And she went off into another fit of giggles.

                "Yer terrible, kid," he said, grabbing Jubilee in a headlock and rumpling her hair affectionately. "Git goin' to bed, will you."

                "Yes sir," she said cheekily, pecking him on the cheek, ignoring his disgruntled look, and hurried off up the stairs. He faced Bobby and Mickie.

                "Do yer best ta fergit what happened," he said. "Jeanie's a telepath; if she gits 'round ta realizin' it ain't her fault, yer surface thoughts're gonna give it away soon's she tries ta probe ya."

                Bobby grinned. "We'll try, but it's gonna be all anyone thinks about for the next few days."

                Logan chuckled. "Yeah. They'll never be able ta live it down."


	8. Alternate Reality?

Chapter 8: Alternate Reality?

                "Jean?"

                Jean sat up on the bed where she was reading, to see Betsy in the doorway. "Yeah?"

                "Can we talk a minute?"

                "Sure." She sat up, closed her book, and made room beside her on the bed for Betsy. "What's on your mind?"

                "Well…I know it's the end of school and all, but Bobby's pranking around has gotten a little out of hand the last week or so. I was wondering if you might consider helping me turn the tables on him…"

*                                                              *                                                              *

                Bobby stretched in bed, yawning. He flung his arms out, wide, and felt another warm body in the bed next to him. 

                His eyes flew open in shock, and he yelped in surprise, grabbing at the sheet to cover his nakedness as he scrambled out of bed. The body beside his made a grumbling sound, rolled over, and opened its eyes.

                Betsy!

                He stared. "What are you doing in my bed?!" he howled in shock.

                She sat up. "Bobby, what's wrong? Why shouldn't I be here? We're married, after all; it's not like I'm a total stranger." The sheet fell down, past her chest, and Bobby saw…

                He turned his eyes away quickly, trying not to stare at Betsy's well-endowed chest, and searched quickly for something—anything--else to occupy his attention.

                Bobby stared around the room. It was larger than his room at the institute, and filled with two dressers, two closets, a pile of women's shoes in the corner beside a pile of what he assumed was his shoes, and the bed was made with a beige comforter patterned with…of all things…flowers! Yech!

                "This…this is all wrong…" he gestured helplessly at the room, the bed, and everything else around him. "I went to sleep last night in my room, on my bed, in the mansion. And now…this morning…this is wrong, Betsy! You're Warren's girl, not mine, and--"

                Bobby's voice trailed off as he caught sight of himself in the mirror over the dresser. His hair was going gray at the temples, and there were more lines on his face than there had been when he was twenty. He was now…what, almost forty? He turned away from the mirror in disbelief. "What is going on?"

                "What is going on is that you're going to be late for work if you continue to sit here talking," Betsy said, getting out of bed…and she did sleep nude, and Bobby was hard-put not to stare at her body as she glided into the bathroom. "Will you go and wake our daughters up before she's late for school?"

                "Uh…" Bobby froze. "Our daughters?"

                Betsy poked her head out of the bathroom. "Yes. _Our daughters_. What, you're going to tell me you've forgotten about them too?" She sighed. "Are you alright? Maybe I should call Warren and tell him you're sick, and you can't go to work today?" 

                "W-Warren?"

                Betsy came out of the bathroom, still nude, and placed a hand on his forehead. "Hmmm. You don't feel warm, but something's obviously wrong or you wouldn't be acting like this. I'll go call Warren." She turned away from him, going to the telephone beside the bed, and dialed a number. "Hello," she said when someone answered. "Yes, Marie, it's me, Elizabeth. Robert's sick, he won't be able to make it into work today. Would you tell Warren, please?" A pause. "No, I don't think he'll be going to the weekly poker game. You tell Scott he'll have to try and get his money back from Robert next week. And tell Jean that yes, we appreciated her hospitality last night but it was probably her husband's experimental Twinkie Cake that made Bobby ill." Another pause.

                "So it's okay with Warren? Good, then Robbie will probably be in tomorrow. Tell my brother I said thank you, and that he's a sweetie. Thanks, sis." Betsy hung up the phone.

                "Robbie? I hate being called Robbie!" Bobby exploded.

                "Since when? You didn't object last night when I was screaming your name while I--"

                "Stop!" Bobby exclaimed desperately. "Please…I went to bed last night in my room back at the institute and suddenly this morning I'm forty, married to you, living in a--" he stopped short. "Where are we, anyway?"

                "Your townhouse," Betsy said, tapping her foot impatiently. "This is your townhouse. Personally, I don't like it, but it is closer to where you work. And my brother Warren talked me into it because you asked him to."

                "Warren's your brother? But that's all wrong! Brian Braddock's your brother, you and Warren were going out, and Scott was married to Jean, and Remy was going out with Rogue, and we were all living back at Xavier's mansion and we were the X-Men, and--"

                Betsy was looking at him strangely. "Okay, now I know you're not all right. Why would Marie ever go out with a womanizer like Remy? And who in their right mind would marry Scott? Jean is married to Henry McCoy. And who the heck is Brian? Warren's my brother, always has been, and Marie is engaged to him. And who are the X-Men?"

                Bobby sat down on the edge of the bed, staring at the heavy gold wedding band around his finger, and shook his head, his mind reeling. "This is all wrong," he said, desperately. "This is all wrong. Maybe I fell through an interdimensional portal, or Gateway warped me here, or something like that. This isn't right. None of this is right."

                Just then, the door to the bedroom opened, and two girls walked in. Bobby gasped as he recognized Jubilee and Mickie. "Jubilee! Tell Betsy this is all wrong!"

                "What's all wrong, Dad?" Mickie asked him. "Are you okay? Mom, he doesn't look right, does he?"

                Bobby's mouth hung open in shock as Jubilee walked up to him and felt his forehead, exactly the way Betsy had moments ago. "He doesn't feel warm, but maybe he should go see a doctor, anyway." Her eyes brightened hopefully. "If you need help with him, maybe we could stay home from school to go with you…"

                "Absolutely not, young lady," Betsy said, in a tone of voice Bobby was more used to hearing Jean use with the younger students at the institute. "You and your sister are going to march right to the bathroom and get ready for school. I will take your father to Hank and Jean McCoy. They'll fix whatever's wrong with him. Go on, now, scoot." The two girls groaned and walked out of the room. "Now come on, Robbie, let's get you dressed--"

                "Don't call me Robbie!" Bobby screeched. "My name is Bobby!"

                "Okay, okay, Bobby, then," Betsy said. "Get dressed. I'll drive, and we'll drop the girls off at school before I take you to see Dr. McCoy."

                Bobby sat at the kitchen table in a daze, watching as the two girls devoured bowls of Sugar Bombs. He started to get up and reach for the box to pour himself a bowl, but Betsy turned away from the counter and put a bowl down in front of him. "What's this?" he asked her.

                Betsy looked at him, puzzled. "Your breakfast, dear. Grape-Nuts. You like Grape-Nuts."

                "I do not! I like Sugar Bombs! I've always liked Sugar Bombs!"

                Betsy put her hands on her hips. "Since when?"

                "Since…since…well, I don't know, I've always liked them! Jubilee and I fight over them all the time at home!"

                "This is home," Betsy said in even, clipped tones. "And you have never liked Sugar Bombs. 'They have too much sugar', you said when I first started buying them for the girls, and now every time we go to the dentist you keep saying we wouldn't have nearly as big a bill if the girls stopped eating sugary cereal." She took the empty bowls from the girls. "Go get your teeth brushed and grab your backpacks, girls. Mom's driving you to school today."

                "Aw, Mom, can't we take the bus?" the girls chorused.

                "No," Betsy said, "Because, if I am not mistaken, the bus just went by. I'll write notes while you go and brush your teeth. Go on, now!" She pulled a pad of paper and started writing notes for the girl's schools as Bobby stared morosely into his bowl of kitty litter. He'd always thought of this particular cereal as kitty litter. He'd given it a try, once, when Jean and Ororo had decided everyone needed to eat healthier and had tossed out all the junk food in the mansion. After the first bite he'd decided to sneak out and get his own stash of Sugar Bombs. Hank had put in a request for his Twinkies, and Logan had gone with him to replenish their stash of alcoholic beverages. Even Scott had helped. Jean and Ororo had both had fits when they found out, but at least they stopped trying to ban junk food from the mansion.

                "So, Mom, Dad's little problem…isn't going to stop us from having our sleepover this weekend, is it?" Mickie said hopefully. "I've already asked some of the girls from my class, and Jubes asked Chris from school to come too."

                "Of course not," Betsy said to them, keeping her eyes on the road. Bobby sat in the passenger seat, staring silently out the windshield. "We've been planning this for a long time."

                "Uh, excuse me," Bobby said, raising his eyebrow. "I don't think it's proper for young ladies like you to have a sleepover with boys."

                "Mom!" the girls wailed. 

                Betsy sighed. "Your father's not feeling well," she said to them. "Don't worry, we're not going to have that argument again. I'll talk to him."

                They pulled up in front of Bayville High, and the girls grabbed their backpacks. "Thanks, Mom. We'll see you after school. Bye." They kissed Betsy on the cheek, then Jubilee turned to him. "I'll see you this afternoon, okay, Dad? Feel better. Bye." She kissed him quickly on the cheek, bounced out of the car, and ran up the walk toward the school, catching up with some of her friends halfway there.

                "Really, Robbie," Betsy said, and Bobby was so involved with his own thoughts that he completely missed her calling him Robbie. "We've talked and talked about this. We both told the girls that in order for us to trust them by themselves eventually, we have to allow them to show us they can be trusted. And part of that is having a supervised sleepover. It's a lot of girls and boys from their class, and we'll be supervising them to make sure nothing happens, and anyway, we've had 'The Talk' with them, and they know where we stand on that topic, right?"

                "Whatever you say," Bobby muttered, still only half-listening to her. 

                Moments later, they pulled up in front of what looked like an extra-large residential house. The sign out front told them different. 'Dr. Henry McCoy, General Medical Practitioner' said one. And right under it, another small sign reading, 'Jean McCoy, Psychologist.'

                He walked up to the door and waited behind Betsy as she rang the bell. And when the door opened he gawked.

                Hank was standing there, looking like his old self; chunky yet subtly handsome features, unusually large hands and feet, husky build. And no blue fur or sharp canines. Bobby stared for a moment more, then blurted out, "Hank, what happened to your fur?"

                "Excuse me?' the doctor peered at him over the rim of his glasses. "Did I hear you correctly, Mr. Drake? I have no fur, nor have I ever had any. Either you are seriously delusional or you are extremely sick, and in either case you appear in dire need of my assistance, and that of my wife's." He opened the door wider. "You are quite fortunate that I have no patients waiting at the moment, so I can see you immediately. Come this way." He led the way down the hallway and showed Bobby and Betsy into a comfortably appointed sitting room. "Wait here while I get my instruments ready."

                Bobby sat down on the edge of an overstuffed wing chair and looked around him uneasily. It looked like every other doctor's office he'd ever been in. The same ubiquitous paintings in soothing pastel colors, the same beige-white walls, the same rather uncomfortable, the same motley assortment of magazines on the low table between the chairs. He picked one up, was idly leafing through it when a tall, pretty red-head walked in through the door Hank had just walked out of. She held the door open as a tall, silver-haired African woman walked through, pushing a wheelchair in which a bald man was seated. "Thank you, Dr. McCoy," the woman was saying.

                "Oh, don't worry about it, Mrs. Xavier," Jean said lightly. "I'm glad I could help. Now, remember, your next appointment is in two weeks, so I will see you then, right?" The man nodded, and the trio passed Bobby and Betsy, heading toward the exit door.

                "Charles!" Bobby said, springing out of his chair. "Charles, hey, it's Bobby, hey, do you know what's happening?"

                "I have never seen you before in my life, young man," Charles Xavier said, with as much dignity as he could manage, given the way Bobby was clinging to his hand. "I have other places to go to, so 'Ro, my dear, if you would…"

                "Excuse us," the tall African woman said. "We need to be going."

                Jean waited until the two had gone before turning to Bobby. "That was hardly nice," she said. "I never knew you were capable of such rudeness."

                "I'm not being rude!" Bobby lunged toward her, reaching for Jean's arms and grabbing them. "You don't understand, this is all wrong, I went to bed last night twenty years old, in my room at Xavier's institute, and this morning I woke up to find I'm twenty years older, married to Betsy with two children, and nothing's the way I remember it!" He shook her a little, desperate. "You have to believe me--"

                "Let go of me!" Jean said forcefully, grabbing his hands with hers. "Let go of me, right now, or I'll…"

                "Oh my stars and garters," Hank said as he hurried in. He was holding a syringe. "Jean, Mrs. Drake, will you hold him? I shall have to inject him with…"

                "No, no, no!" Bobby twisted in Betsy and Jean's arms. "Stop, I'm not crazy, I know this isn't right, let me go…" And then he slumped bonelessly in Betsy's arms and closed his eyes as the sedative Hank had injected him with took effect….

*                                                              *                                                              *

                "Yahhh!"

                Bobby sat bolt upright in bed, yelling in shock and surprise as a glass of cold water hit him in the face. He rubbed the cold wetness out of his eyes and stared up in disbelief.

                Betsy stood in front of him, holding the glass, her foot tapping impatiently on the floor. "Bobby, I swear, if you wake us all up like that again it will be a bucket of water I throw at you, not just a glass," she said irritably. 'And what were you dreaming about, anyway? You were yelling as if someone was sticking you with needles."

                "It was Hank…Dr. McCoy…he was injecting me with a sedative…" And then his surroundings hit him, and he stared around with wide eyes. "I'm back? I'm home? I'm really home?" He looked down. He was dressed in his Marvin the Martian boxers, and his Marvin slippers sat next to his blessedly messy bed, half-hidden under the flower-less! ice-blue comforter that usually adorned his bed. Disbelieving, he slid out of bed and ran to the dresser, looking at his reflection in the mirror. "Holy cow, I'm twenty again! No gray hairs!" He went into an impromptu dance around his room, whooping wildly, as Betsy watched him expressionlessly. After a moment, as it became clear that he was paying no attention to her whatsoever, she turned on her heel and stalked from the room, pulling the door carefully shut behind her.

                Out in the hall Jubilee, Mickie, Jean, and Hank were holding their sides, laughing silently. Betsy placed a finger over her lips and led them all down to the kitchen, where, safely out of earshot of Bobby's room, they burst into laughter. They were still giggling and chortling when Scott came down. "Good morning, sweetheart," he said, giving Jean a kiss. "What's the laughter about? I woke up and I didn't see you."

                "We were getting a little of our own back against Bobby," Jean answered him, still chuckling. "We put a dream in his head so he'd think he was forty and married to Betsy with Mickie and Jubilee for children."

                Scott laughed heartily. "This I have to hear."

                Xavier came in just as Jean was finishing up her story, and smiled as he heard the light-hearted laughter around the table. "Do I want to know what the joke is about?" he asked, helping himself to a cup of coffee.

                "No," Jean said. "We were just getting back at Bobby for all the 'end of school year' pranks he's been playing on all of us. Just a little bit of harmless fun."

                Bobby chose that moment to come bouncing into the kitchen, still dressed in his Marvin boxers but now with the addition of a t-shirt. He slid across the smooth tile of the kitchen floor, coming to a stop in front of the cereal cupboard, and opened it.

                "The Grape-Nuts are over there in the corner," Betsy said sweetly. Bobby turned to her, giving her a narrow-eyed, considering look, then he reached for the box of Sugar Bombs and grabbed it, opened it, stuck his hand in it, and pulled out a handful, stuffing it into his mouth. He was about to bounce out of the kitchen when Mickie held out his shirt. "Bobby. I got your shirt done."

                "Oh, gee, thanks, Mickie," he said rather indistinctly through a full mouth. Ororo, just walking into the kitchen, gave him a disapproving look. "Robert, you should not talk with your mouth full," she chided him. Bobby wrinkled his nose, nodded, then took the shirt Mickie was holding out and bounced back out of the kitchen.

                "Uh, Mickie, am I right or did that shirt collar…" Jubilee started then trailed off as Mickie started to laugh. The adults looked on, puzzled, until Mickie brought herself under control sufficiently to explain the joke. Just as she finished, there came a howl from the top of the stairs. "MICKIE!!" It was Bobby.

                Jean chuckled, "I think I feel like shopping, how about you?" she asked the two girls. As they heard Bobby's footsteps come back down the stairs, she led Jubilee and Mickie out the kitchen door to the garage.


	9. Lost In A Strange Shape

Chapter 9: Lost In A Strange Shape

                Bobby kept his eyes on the road, mindful of Jean's watchful eyes on his hands as he was driving. If he wanted to be allowed to take the car out more often, he had to show Jean that he was a good driver.

                He was, however, slightly distracted by the sight of Jubilee and Mickie in the rearview mirror, bouncing around on the back seat singing 'Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer' at the tops of their lungs. Jubilee was wearing a short white crop top that showed her maturing breasts quite nicely, and Mickie's low-cut v-neck tee showed a fair amount of cleavage too. And if he glanced quickly off to the side, he could see Jean's own eye-popping upper story too. He quickly returned his eyes to the road.

                They were going shopping, this time because Charles's birthday was coming up. Jean wanted to pick up a few things.  Bobby also suspected that she was also going to want to keep an eye on them, since unbeknownst to the three teens, Ororo had been at the mall when Jubilee and Mickie had played with the lingerie store mannequins. They weren't sure what she'd told Jean, but here Jean was, playing chaperon to them. Which didn't dampen the girls' enthusiasm any.

                Jean grimaced as Mickie started on another round of song right behind her ear. "Forty-two bottles of beer on the wall, forty-two bottles of beer! Take one down and pass it around, forty-one bottles of beer on the wall!"

                "Next time I'm going to tell Logan to come with you guys," Jean grumbled, sinking back in her seat and scowling out the windshield at the gray day outside. "They can yell his ear off."

                Bobby snickered at her look as he pulled into the parking lot of the mall. "You didn't have to come," he pointed out. "I can handle the girls."

                "Like you handled them the last time? I'm not sure I trust you after that," Jean said as she got out. Mickie and Jubilee popped out of the backseat, Bobby locked up the car, and they started for the front door of the mall.

                Bobby had saved for the new video game he wanted, so when Jean started heading off toward the store that sold fancy gift items like pen sets and letter openers and stuff like that, he opted to head for the game store. Jubilee and Mickie quickly started to follow him, but Jean grabbed Jubilee's arm firmly. "No. You're coming with me. I'm not letting the three of you go off together. I don't want to be called to the security office to pick up three wayward children. Besides, Jubilee has to pick up something for Charles. Mickie, maybe you'll think of something too." She took her cell phone out of her purse and turned it on, then told Bobby to do the same. 'You know how I hate having to drop my shields in crowded places to track you down, so turn on that cell phone on your belt, Bobby." He reached down and did so, then Jean and Jubilee headed off to the gift store.

                Bobby took her to the Game Room, found the game he'd wanted to get, then walked around with her as she looked at things. He eyed the X-Box on the highest shelf of the locked glass case. The other guys had wanted to get a Playstation 2, he'd wanted an Xbox. They'd won. But there were games for the Xbox that weren't available for the P2 system, and he was seriously considering buying the thing for Christmas, ostensibly for Hank but also because he knew Hank would let him play with it.

                Mickie saw him looking at it, and smiled. "Xbox is definitely cooler," she said happily. "My parents asked us what we wanted for Christmas last winter, and I wanted an X-Box. My older brother wanted a Gamecube.  He got what he wanted—and spent more time playing with mine than with his." She grinned.

                Bobby looked at the sample Xbox sitting at a demo station, and sighed. "I wanted one last year, but the guys wanted the P2. I got overruled."

                Mickie looked at him thoughtfully, inwardly totaling up the money she had left from the amount her parents had given Xavier.  Buying the game system would mean she'd have to forget about buying that dress she'd seen in a store window as they went to the Game Room, but his happiness would be worth it. And really, did she need any more clothes?

                She switched topics as she led him out of the store. "Jean said Mr. Xavier's birthday is coming up, but I don't know what to get. What did you get for him?"

                "Uh, nothing yet," Bobby sighed. "But the other day Remy and Rogue's volleyball went sailing into his open study window and broke a little reading lamp in there. I was going to stop and pick one up for him. What about you?"

                "On my father's birthday I got him a bunch of little prisms that could be strung across the top of a window. When the sun shone in, rainbows would dance around the room. He loved it. I was thinking about getting one of those."

                "Charles has a big one on his desk," Bobby said thoughtfully. "Sometimes when he's thinking about something really hard he picks it up and takes it to the window. He'll sit there staring at the rainbow for a long time, until he's worked out whatever problem he has. I wonder why we never thought about getting him ones for the windows."

                "Let me go and get that, then. I'll meet you at the burger place in half an hour." And before Bobby could object, she had slipped away from him and disappeared into the crowd. 

                He spent half an hour wandering in and out of shops, putting off the purchase he needed to make until right before he was supposed to meet her at the fast-food place. He walked into the burger joint half an hour later, noted that she wasn't there yet, and sat down instead at a table. While he waited for her, he took his new video game out of the bag and started reading the description on the back.

                She flopped into the seat across from him moments later, carrying two bags. The one that caught his eye had the Game Room's logo on it; the other one had the logo of an odds-and-ends store on the outside. He eyed the Game Room bag curiously.

                She saw his curious look, laughed, and pulled it up onto the table. "Here," she said with a laugh, I might as well give it to you now." He opened the bag and saw…

                "Mickie!" He was speechless as he pulled the Xbox out of the bag. "How did you… what did…I didn't…" He dug out the two games in the bottom of the bag and looked at them. "Wow. The games I wanted, too! How did you know?"

                Mickie blushed. "Jubilee talks a lot, did you know that? She's been talking about nothing but how you've been trying to save up to get you one of these. So I got it; now all you have to do is get the games. The store's having a promo where they give you a couple of games free if you buy the system. I picked out the ones my brother liked."

                Bobby looked at the girl sitting across from the table from him. Jubilee would always be 'his' girl, but Mickie was a really good friend…he leaned forward and brushed his lips lightly across her cheek.

                A chorus of hollers and jeers came from somewhere off behind them, and Bobby broke off the kiss to stare contemptuously at Derek and his crew, sitting at a table behind Mickie's back. The comment he directed at them was pithy and anatomically impossible.

                Derek got up out of his chair. "Oh, so big boy wanna come play with us?" he challenged. Mickie grabbed Bobby's arm before he could go over there and answer the other boy's challenge. 

                "Bobby, come on. He's not worth it." Mickie got up and almost literally dragged Bobby from his seat. "Come on. Ignore them. Let's go find Jean and Jubilee."

                "Aw, widdle baby wunning away," Derek refused to let the topic drop, instead following then two and taunting them in a high-pitched, fake child voice. "Let's see what you got in here," he said, bursting into a run suddenly and grabbing Mickie's bags from her hand before she could tighten her grip. 

Mickie flushed angrily. "Derek, give that back," she snapped, her temper rising.

                Derek reached into the big bag, taking out the game system. "Hey, thanks for buying this for me, Baby," he taunted, walking backward in front of him and shoving the bag into one of his friends' hands. "What's in this one?" Without waiting for an answer, he opened it.

                "What the hell are these?" he remarked, picking up one of the tiny four-inch-square boxes and opening them. "Aw, little girlie bought her kissyface boyfriend prisms! Ain't that cute?" He said to his friends. They laughed and agreed with him.  

                "Stop it, Derek! Give them back!" Bobby lunged for the boy, who darted backward out of his reach. Then, to Mickie's horror, Derek took the delicate prism out of its cotton-lined box and gave her an evil smile just before he dropped it on the floor.

                It shattered into a zillion pieces on the floor, and Bobby's temper went with it.

                He lunged for the other boy, snarling in anger. Derek, unprepared for the sudden move, didn't have time to pull the smaller bag out of Bobby's reach. Bobby grabbed it, tossed it in Mickie's direction, and tackled the other boy, who went down under Bobby's flying fists.

                Mickie screamed out, 'Stop it! Bobby, Derek, stop it--" and then a heavy hand fell onto her shoulder as two burly security guards separated the fighting boys. The first guard shoved Bobby back roughly, and Mickie caught him as he stumbled backward into her. She inspected the growing bruise under his eye with concern. "Bobby, are you all right?" He nodded as the guards grasped his arm and hers firmly.

                "Out," the first guard growled. "We want all of you out of the mall now. We'll escort you to the doors. And we don't want to see any of you in the mall again." 

                Derek waited until the guards had vanished back into the mall before snickering at Bobby and Mickie. "Oh well. At least I got a new Xbox out of this." Bobby was about to protest when Mickie stepped forward, eyes flashing.

                "Give it back." Her voice was coolly even.

                "Or you'll do what? Kiss me?" Derek taunted.

                Mickie lost control of her temper. Before Derek's disbelieving eyes, she _shifted_ into the form of a huge black panther, curled her lips back from her teeth, and snarled at them.

                "Holy sh--" Derek stumbled back a few steps, then turned and ran. Unfortunately, he was still holding the Xbox Mickie had bought for Bobby.

                Mickie sprang after them with a fully feline snarl. In this form, she could run faster than they could, and this form was also equipped with retractable claws. She extended these now, and swiped out at Derek with them. Her claw caught the bag, ripped it out of his terrified grasp, and dropped it on the ground.

                One of the side effects of shifting was also that she could get lost in the instincts of the animal she shifted into. Her mind was swirling down into the chasm that was the mind of a large, predatory feline, and her own sense of self was getting lost in the mix. She could hear Bobby's frenzied screaming at her, but the words barely registered, lost in the basic, primal instinct of the panther. _Hunt!_  That instinct was telling her. _Hunt, stalk, pounce, kill, kill, kill_…she tore after the now-terrified boys, following them as they scrambled to get into an old Buick, and clawed and scratched ineffectually at the windows as she tried to get at them. Failing to gain entrance that way, she sprang up on the hood of the car and began to claw the windshield. When that produced no results, she snarled. And turned the claws into hardened steel. Huge gouges appeared in the windshield, and there was only a matter of time before the windshield buckled, and two hundred pounds of enraged feline crashed down on the occupants of the car.

                The front door opened, and Jean and Jubilee came racing out. Jean had felt Bobby's distress and had been heading toward the main entrance even before the cell phone in her purse had started beeping. Jubilee stood, startled, and stared at the huge black cat perched on the front of the now badly dented car. "Holy crap," She whispered to Bobby. "Is that _Mickie_?!"

                Bobby nodded speechlessly. Both kids lapsed into silence as Jean focused her telekinesis and lifted the heavy cat off the car. The cat snarled, clawed at the air with its steel claws, and spit in anger as the car with the boys in it sped out of the parking lot.

                Still concentrating on holding the snarling, spitting cat, Jean reached out telepathically into the panther's mind. **Mickie, snap out of it! They're gone. Change out now!**

                Inside the mind Jean found nothing that remotely resembled humanity. She shuddered. Mickie wasn't the first shape shifter they'd had at the school, but none of their students had ever been capable of _shifting_ into such a large, dangerous form. The problem She and Charles had speculated was that if a human _shifted_ into the shape of something so overwhelmingly primitive, the student could become caught in the feline's mind and be lost. What she and Charles had speculated on was how they would handle something like that if it ever happened. Well, it had now happened, and the problem was before them.

                And she had no idea how to get Mickie changed back.

                "Pain!" Bobby yelled at Jean. "You have to hurt her, or jolt her nerves somehow! That's how she changed back the first time, when Derek dislocated her leg!"

                Jean flinched at the idea of deliberately hurting someone, but she didn't see any choice. People in the parking lot were screaming in terror, and with all the fuss going on, it was only a matter of time before the local law enforcement called in animal control, and they might just shoot Mickie. She couldn't let that happen.

                Still keeping hold of the cat's body telekinetically, she reached out with a smaller portion of her telekinetic power and swung a teke 'fist' into one of the wildly thrashing front legs. The panther screamed in pain as it's leg snapped, and Jean winced. She hadn't meant to hit that hard.

                But it didn't change back.

                Jean gave up. She didn't know how to handle this; she needed Charles's greater psychic ability and power to find the spark that was Mickie inside the panther and 'wake' the girl up enough to change. "Bobby, call the mansion," she said. "Tell Charles We need the Blackbird for a pickup."

                Before she'd even finished speaking Bobby was dialing the mansion's number.


	10. Back To Normal

Chapter 10:

                Xavier glided silently into the observation booth over the Danger Room. The room was empty, the doors sealed. Inside, a huge night-black panther limped in a tight circle, once in a while giving a half-hearted snarl. He stared at the panther for a moment, startled into silence, then turned to Bobby. "Robert, what happened?!"

                Jubilee gripped Bobby around the waist a little tighter. "Come on, Professor, it's not like it was his fault or anything, jeez, what ya gotta jump all over him for?" She would have said more, but Bobby hushed her with a finger placed gently on her lips. She subsided.

                "We were sitting at the burger place at the mall, taking a break. She bought something for me, and I thought a kiss would be a nice way of thanking her." He ignored the flash of jealousy in Jubilee's eyes; he'd worry about that later. "Derek and his friends were sitting right behind us. They started making fun of her. I almost went over there, but Mickie tried to prevent me.

                "We left the restaurant and went to find Jubilee and Jean. Derek and his friends stole the bags out of Mickie's hand and ransacked them. I lost my temper and started fighting when they broke one of the prisms for your birthday gift. Security threw all of us out. Derek started to walk out to his car with Mickie's bags, and that's when she lost her temper. She changed her shape into that panther." He waved a hand at the window.

                Xavier turned to stare at the big cat. **Jean…** he began.

                Jean shook her head. **I tried to find Mickie in there. It's no use. She's gotten lost in the Panther's mind. Charles, I know we've worried about this, but I never really thought any of the students would have this much raw power to just…shift…like that into something this big. What do we do now?**

                **I have to talk to her.** Jean felt the flick of Charles's attention turning from her to the big cat on the floor below.

*                                                              *                                                              *

                **Mickie?**

                _Trapped. Bad place. Bad place, can't run, can't hunt, can't go find the bad two-legs and kill them…_

                **Mickie. It's Professor Xavier.**

                The cat snarled. _Bad voices, talking in the mind. Make the voices shut up. Hunt down that voice, shut it up. Then leave here, find dark place to hide, lick the wound in the front leg that hurt so much._

                Xavier pushed deeper into the mind. He tried standing at the inner barrier to that mind and calling for the little spark that was Mickie, but he wasn't going to reach her. The feral personality had overridden the human personality.

                So he pushed deeper, past the upper levels, the feline predators levels, and descended deeper. As soon as he pushed past the last of the cat's underthoughts of pain, he broke through to a deep, velvety blackness. There was no awareness here. Collecting his thoughts, he projected a call down into that blackness. **Mickie!**

                There was no coherent answer. He didn't 'hear' anything psychically. But he did get the faint impression that something, somewhere in there, had become aware of his presence. He tried again. **Mickie!**

                _?_

It wasn't a question, more like an impression, actually. But, encouraged, he tried again. **Mickie?**

                _Hurt hurt hurt hurt…_

                **I know it hurts, Mickie. But we can't do anything about it right now.**

                _Why?_ And finally the thoughts were fully human.

                **Because you're in the form of a black panther, dear,** Xavier said gently. **You lost your temper and shifted into a panther. Jean tried to get you out of it and accidentally broke your leg.**

                Mickie's astral form turned and looked around her confusedly. _Where are we? This isn't my body, is it?_

**It is your body, your mind…but we're deep inside your mind, below your conscious thoughts. I had to come down here to find you so I can lead you back to your body. You'll have to shift back before we can do anything about that broken leg.**

_Oh._ Mickie looked at him, ashamed. _I really messed things up this time, didn't I?_

                **You are still young,** Xavier said comfortingly. **You are still unused to your powers. Once you know where your limits are, and what you can and cannot do with them, you'll be all right.**

                _My parents thought that since I found out how to get out of my cat form, that everything was all right. The last time I talked to them last night they said they were wrapping up their visit to my uncle and they wanted to come here and pick me up. I told them I didn't want to leave, that I wanted to stay here, but they said that since I've learned control I didn't need to be here anymore._

                **But you still do have a lot to learn, Mickie,** Charles said. **This little incident proves that. When they get here, I shall have a talk with them. I would like you to stay here.** A smile twitched his astral lips. **Although, I believe Scott may not agree completely. Bobby's pranks have been a little out of hand this year, and I believe he thinks it's because of you.**

Mickie's eyes widened. **It wasn't me, I swear!**

                Xavier laughed at that. **Well you have had a hand in some of the pranks, so there is some truth to what he thinks. Scott still doesn't realize that the incident with his pocket was your doing, he believes Bobby did it. I haven't told him otherwise. However, his pranking around is also Jubilee's fault, since he's trying to impress her, though I have not informed Scott of that either. He seems to have forgotten some of the  things he did to get Jean's attention.**

                Mickie laughed. _Oh, tell me, please?_

                **When you're back to normal.** Xavier said. **Come back to your body. It will hurt, but as soon as you change back, Hank can work on that broken leg.** He started to leave her mind. After a second's hesitation, she followed him back.

                Xavier severed the link with Mickie's mind, and opened his eyes. Before them, down in the Danger room, the black panther _shifted_ back into Mickie's body, minus the clothes. Her face immediately crumpled in pain, and she started whimpering as she brought her broken arm up to her chest. Xavier blinked. The break had been in Mickie's left front panther leg, and with her now in human shape, that translated to her left arm.

                Hank left the observation room, followed hastily by Jean. Mickie looked up as the door opened seconds later to admit them into the room. Jean wrapped her jacket around the shaking girl, and began to lead her to their medlabs.

*                                                              *                                                              *

                Bobby pushed the door open. "Is Hank here?" he whispered. Mickie shook her head, and Bobby opened the door wider, urging Jubilee in before he closed the door. "Hey," he said to her. "We would have come sooner, but Hank said you needed to rest."

                "Hank's a worrywart," Jubilee grinned, and plopped down on the bed beside Mickie. "'Sides, we won't stay long. Just wanted to tell you we're glad you're back."

                "Yeah," Bobby said. "The panther thing was totally cool, but you're a lot more fun when you're human." Mickie laughed.

                "You know, before all this happened, my parents were going to take me out of here?" she said. 'I talked to them a couple of days ago, and they said that since I learned to shift out of my cat form by myself, and I could now do it at will, then I didn't have to stay here, I could come home."

                "Oh, no!" Jubilee looked horrified. "You can't leave! Like, if you leave, who's gonna help us torture Scott?"

                "Oh, well, since this little incident happened, I guess I still have a lot to learn about my powers, right? So they can't make me go. I want to stay here."

                "Cool," Jubilee said, relieved. "Then you can help us sew Remy's pocket--"

                "Jubes! Wait till her arm heals before we do anything like that!" 

                Mickie's eyebrows rose. "What are you going to do to Remy's pockets?"

                The three teenagers settled down to plan.

*                                                              *                                                              *

                Okay, that's it for this story.

                I'm glad you all enjoyed it; I had a lot of fun writing it. It was a change from my usual plotline, and I'm grateful to Niina for challenging me, one; and two, letting me know what she thought of it.

                Thanks also to all the wonderful souls who dove into this story and embraced it, and then told me you liked it. I love getting reviews. Several of them also gave me ideas for succeeding chapters, which was cool. Thank you, all of you, for hanging in there with me and enjoying all of the stories. Thanks also, in particular, to Wolf55, who has been my steady reviewer since my very first posting on ff.net. Thanks to AnythingbutOrdinary, who's obvious delight with all things anti-Scott and all things pro-Logan, gave me the idea for the condom joke.

                Now you all are wondering why that sounded so much like a goodbye. It's because it is. Circumstances at home have changed.

                My hubby and I have been renting a place in Baltimore for the last couple of years. The owner of the house, however, has just passed away suddenly, and his next of kin has informed us that they want to sell the house; they don't want to rent to us any longer. We have to vacate by July 9th.

                We were fortunate enough to find a place; it's right around the corner from us, actually; a townhouse whose current owner wants us to rent it from him once the remodel is complete. However, since we only have a couple of months to get together the money to move, to pay the first month's rent and the security deposit, a change in our spending habits is going to become necessary. We're shutting off our cable and my internet service at the beginning of May, so unfortunately, I shall no longer be able to post new stories. Which stinks, really, I have an Ororo story, one Ororo/Moose spinoff fic (Moose from 'No Greater Love'; remember Jubilee's big biker friend?) a Warren fic, and my first Jean/Scott fic, as well as the rough idea for another Jubes/Logan fic.

                I shall, of course, continue to write while I am offline; by the time I am able to sign back on hopefully about mid July or early August, September at the latest, I should have a whole pack of new stories to share with all of you. I regret having to disappoint all of those readers out there who have come to enjoy my stories, both those who review, and those who do not. 

                I will keep the email addresses of all those people who have kept in touch with me so far, and email you (you know who you are) when I am back online. If anyone else wishes to be informed when I am ready to post new stories, please drop me a line and let me know; my current email address will continue to be valid until May 1st. I am doing this so that everyone who needs to get in touch with me can do so before I sign off.

                Thanks again to everyone who has read reviewed, or enjoyed the stuff I write. I have enjoyed writing them, and I hope to see some of you, hopefully, back for more when I begin posting again after the move.

Thank you all muchly;

Jaenelle Angelline 


End file.
